Chashuo 茶說

Chashuo 茶說 is the title of several books on tea. The most important one was written during the high Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Tu Long 屠隆 (1542–1605), courtesy name Weizhen 緯真 or Changqing 長卿, from Yin 鄞 (today part of Ningbo 寧波, Zhejiang). He was interested in many details of daily life and wrote quite a few books, of which the collection Kaopan yushi 考槃餘事 is the most famous one.

Tu Long's Chashuo is derived from the chapter Chajian 茶箋 of his Kaopan yushi and was published as a separate text when Yu Zheng 喻政 (1564–1659) was compiling his series Chashu quanji 茶書全集. However, the Chashuo is not fully identical with the Chajian and constitutes a version that abbreviated many outdated issued while adding new information. Part of the text quotes from the Kaopan yushi chapter Shanzhai jian 山齋箋, transformed into the chapter Chaliao 茶寮 "Tea lodges". The whole text consists of 28 paragraphs describing types of tea, the production of oxidized leaves, their storage, the selection of water, and the preparation of the beverage.

Many Ming-period books on recreation included chapters or paragraphs on tea, for instance, Gao Lian's 高濂 (c. 1600) Zunsheng bajian 遵生八箋, in the part Yinzhuan fushi jian 飲饌服食箋.

The series Guang baichuan xuehai 廣百川學海 calls the text Chajian.

Another book called Chashuo was written by Huang Longde 黃龍德. It can be found in the series Chengshi congke 程氏叢刻 compiled by Cheng Bai'er 程百二 (1573_1629). Further texts with the same title are the literary products of Xing Shixiang 邢士襄, and Wu Congxian 吳從先.