The Classic of Tea

[2] According to tea lore, Lu Yu was an orphan of Jinling county (now Tianmen City in Hubei Province) who was adopted by a Buddhist monk of the Dragon Cloud Monastery.

During the An Lushan and Shi Siming rebellion period, Lu Yu retired to Shaoqi (now Wuxing county, Zhejiang).

Lu Yu made friends with many literati, including the calligrapher Yan Zhenqing and the poet Huangfu Zheng.

"He invested the Ch'a Ching with the concept that dominated the religious thought of his age, whether Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian: to see in the particular an expression of the universal".

[3] In Lu Yu's hometown, Tianmen, there is an ancient styled tower named according to the classic in honour of the great writer.

In that silent night, Lit only by candlelight, I struck a marble bell— Its chime carrying me A hidden man Deep into thoughts of ages past.