Lu Yu

Author of «The Classic of Tea»

The legends call this author the Sage of Tea, but only a few facts about him are available. Lu Yu, also known as Lu Hongjian, was a three-year-old orphan when a Buddhist monk Ji-Ji found him on a riverbank. Lu spent his childhood at the Buddhist monastery. It was there that he most probably tried tea for the first time and learned to prepare it. Later, he left the monastery and became a hermit. He traveled a lot, searched for the best water to make tea, and grew tea trees. According to historians, Lu Yu was a prolific writer. He is the author of numerous biographies of historical figures, genealogic researches, and geographical descriptions of various locations, though only a handful of his works survived. Lu Yu’s monumental work was «The Classic of Tea» that turned tea from medicine into a cult drink, and the tea ceremony—into an indispensable part of the Chinese and, later, other Eastern cultures.