Chabaixi(茶百戏)
Chabaixi (literally, hundred tea show), also called fencha (literally, sorting tea), shui danqing (water painting), tangxi (soup show), chaxi (tea show), etc, is an ancient tea ceremony which makes tea soup form various patterns. One remarkable feature is that it can display characters or patterns in the tea soup with no other raw materials but tea and water.
Chabaixi was originated from the Tang Dynasty. Liu Yuxi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, described in his poem Song of Tea Tasting at Xishan Lanruo Temple, “Pot sounds like sudden downpour and pines soughing, white clouds filled the bowl, flowers lingering.” And Xu Yin also referred to the embryonic form of Chabaixi in his poem. By the time of the Song Dynasty, influenced by Emperor Huizong, court officials and literati, Chabaixi had been developed to a perfect stage. Emperor Huizong not only wrote a book named Daguan Chalun (Treatises on tea written at the year Daguan) to expound his view on Diancha and Fencha, but also cooked tea in person for the court officials. A lot of literati, such as Tao Gu, Lu You, Li Qingzhao, Yang Wanli, Su Shi, etc liked Fencha, and they left behind quite a few poems and articles on Chabaixi. Lu You described the situation of fencha in his poem Spring Rain just Stops in Lin’an, “Leisurely I write in cursive style on a small paper piece, watching the patterns formed in the bubble-filled tea soup beside the window.” Tao Gu wrote in his Records on Tea, “Chabaixi… Recent years there are people capable of using a spoon and special skills to stir in the tea soup to form special patterns, like birds, beasts, worms, fish, flowers, grass, etc, which are delicate as paintings, but dissipate soon.” The practice of Chabaixi was gradually on the wane after the Yuan Dynasty, and there were no documentary records on Chabaixi after the Qing Dynasty. Zhang Zhifeng, a major of tea science in Wuyishan City, recovered the ancient and precious cultural heritage in 2009 after systematical study.