Tea-Culture-and-Coffee-Culture-茶文化和咖啡文化.doc

Tea Culture and Coffee CultureIntroduction: after a semesters learning and feeling on Intercultural Communication, weXie Zhouhong and Huang Feichoose the topic Tea Culture and Coffee Culture to do a research and show the results in the paper. Though we almost have no knowledge of this course at first, we now find that not only the face-to-face English communication can help us a lot but also the process we collect and integrate information that can quickly and effectively make us aware of the cultural differences. We didnt interview many people around us or product any special effects because of the distinctiveness of our topic and a weakness of the technical aspects. Whats more, we found that it was embarrassed of us to interview some foreigners who were strangers to us just for our homework. Anyway, they have been bothered too much for this reason. Still, we did some interviews by net chat and produced little effect. So we have a long way to go on the road to learn to communicate in English.To see different cultures from tea and coffeeTea and coffee are two drinks of the largest consumption in the world. Coffee is irreplaceable in the lives of westerners, whether it is in schools, companies or shopping arcade, people carry coffee and find pleasure in it. However, tea is not only a drink in Chinese peoples life, but also carries human emotions and culture. Tea and coffee, which have different connotation and history, are representative of the differences between Chinese and Western culture.The growth environment of tea and coffee is entirely different. Coffee is grown in hot Africa and South America such as Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica and etc. These places all belong to tropical or subtropical with a climate of burning hot and rainy which is suitable for growing coffee. But tea mostly appears in mild and humid temperate, for example, Hangzhou. The hot and mild climates there just suggest the main difference between Chinese and Western culture: Westerners are passionate that they would greet warmly even if they confront a stranger. The Chinese do things tenderly and admire a wall between presenves love. The species and brewing methods of tea and coffee exists differences, too. To brew coffee, there are strict requirements from grinding coffee beans to implements as well as water temperature proportion. The brew will taste strong and aromatic. Tea needs more complex process than coffee to brew. There are several species of tea including green tea, bohea, white tea, oolong tea, jasmine tea. Each type of tea processing is not the same. The tea set is also rich in variety. Different tea accompanied by different tea things so as to better reflect the flavor of the tea. As early as 1200 years ago in the Tang Dynasty, Lu Yus book Cha Jing on which cost him 27 years has elaborated tea cultivation, the method of tea processing and tea making. And until 1000 BC, green coffee bean was only the first time found in the boiling water. The length of Chinese and Western history is evident. Whats more, coffee infusion is always completed at one stroke. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt brewed his coffee twice in the morning and afternoon, namely “twice coffee”. It become a much-told tale then because Roosevelts frugality. This shows that used coffee will lose its original flavor and becomes tasteless as time goes by. Tea is just the opposite, the first brewed tea is known as “to wash the tea” which is to discard let alone to drink. The real taste of tea needs two to three baptism of boiling water. This is the portrayal of the Chinese and Westerners different attitudes toward life. Chinese people advocate hard-work when they are young so as to have ideal living and financial situation in their middle age as well as an aftertaste without regret in their senectitude. Chinese people like stability-they would brew a cup of tea to the end, stay in an industry to the end until success. Westerners like changes, they keep doing one thing in a short time and change to another after a few years. Life is like making coffee for westerners, if things lose its original feeling of freshness, then change to a fresh start just as dropping the used coffee and making a new one, the flavor of tea fades away after first brewage.Coffee and tea both contain affection between people. But coffee focuses on the relaxation with others after work without any meaning in it. However, tea itself contains the Chinese peoples tender regards to others. In the west, the point of drinking coffee with friends is never coffee itself but the way they stay together. Coffee is just considered as a most popular beverage and to drink it together is the key point. Chinese people regard tea as a display of affection. The saying “茶七饭八酒满盅” tells us that to pour only Chinese make tea as a medium of cordiality. Westerners use coffee to treat their guests in order to make them relaxed and pleased. However, for Chinese people, to treat guests with tea is an implicit way of the expression of their hospitality.Intellectual men in the East and the West also hold different attitudes toward coffee and tea. Though the figure of coffee is seldom seen among the works of western literature, coffee is important for scholars. Giant Balzacs addiction to coffee contributed to his success on the creation of the magnum opus The Human Comedy. The series of novels Harry Potter which had won a big hit was also first in a small caf bar where J.K Rolling conceived the idea of writing it. The coffee house is a place special for those Western scholars to exchange ideas and produce. Chinese people endowed tea with more implications. Cao Xueqin described a lot of scenes about tea in his well-known work A Dream of Red Mansions and the word “tea” was needful when the characters in the book were against poems and couplets. Whats more, Miao Yu, one of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling was an expert in tea. The famous poets Bai Juyi, Su Shi and so on, they all shared a same indulgence in tea. All in all, tea has an indissoluble bound with Chinese ancient literature and art, so does it in the modern literature. Zhang Ailing once wrote a short novel in the name of The Jasmine Tea. The most famous we have to count is of course Lao Shes Tea House. It can be seen that, for Chinese scholars, tea is a mirror reflecting of life rather than simply a tool to promote their writing. Due to the increasingly frequent cultural exchange, tea appears in Westerners life while Chinese regard coffee as a kind of daily drink. The difference is, in Western countries, tea has become another kind of leisure drink with a resemblance to coffee because of an addition of sugar, milk and other materials. And in China, coffee has lost its former essence of leisure because it is buckled on these unexpected titles: “bourgeois sentiment” and “blindly worshiping foreign things”. It may also reflect the cultural differences, Westerners like to change serious things to something that close to life and take it easy. Chinese are willing to give anything certain connotations and meanings.Culture is a subtle thing and nothing predictable at first glance. But it surely permeates in our daily life such as tea and coffee. The coffee made out in one vigorous effort is the life the Westerners always try to get; the perseverance of Chinese tea is the kind of stable and peaceful life the Chinese want. Exude fragrance aroma as coffee does, Western culture is shone with deep and vivid tints though it also has a not-long history. The strong straightforward taste of coffee represents the westerners honest and direct way of standing in the world. As one of the representative of the Chinese culture, tea which has carried the colorful culture of several thousand years in China made its own tea culture at the same time. Chinese history is varied and need people to look closely enough. It is also on the behalf of the Chinese implicit and euphemistic way of communication. From one learn all, perhaps this is just a picture to show tea and coffees position in Chinese and Western culture.Reference:(1) 茶书评论：东方茶文化和西方咖啡文化的碰撞(2) 百度百科：茶文化(3) 百度百科：咖啡文化(4) 王士文：The comparison between tea culture and western coffee culture With the development of globalization and integration of culture, people all around the the world has become a big family. As a result, all kinds of culture collide with each other. Western culture swarm into Chinese civilization, thus Chinas tea culture is inevitably affected and challenged by the western coffee culture. By the comparison between tea culture and western coffee culture, the paper aims to make people better understand the differences eastern culture and western culture. The characteristics of Chinese tea cultureChinese tea culture is extensive and profound, which has been a peculiar culture landscape in Chinese peoples life. Whether in tea area or not, the creation and the legacy of tea culture is enduring. China is a multi-ethnic country and Chinese people have a passion for tea. Tea and national culture combined with each other, which form the respective characteristics of tea ceremony, tea art, tea customs. Some of them regard tea as food emphasizing the harmony between tea and food. Some take the national way of drinking as the foundation. Here are some kinds of tea that known very well by people, three-course tea of Bai, the mashed tea of Tujia, Tibet butter tea, dark green tea in Mongoloid and Uygur. From the global perspective, different countries tea art, tea ceremony, and tea custom show differences in the unity of tea drinking, such as Chinese tea culture, Japanese tea ceremony, Korean tea ceremony, British afternoon tea, and Russian tea custom. The formation and development of tea culture has a long history and its historical heredity is based on the continuity of the development of tea production. Tea culture also carries regionalism, otherness, intercommunity, and openness characteristics, which mainly displays in the following respects.1. The connection with Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism. Chinese tea culture can be said to be accomplished by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, which collects their basic principles. Tea itself has the fresh and elegant nature, which can make people calm,.smooth the nerves. It also contributes to cultivate peoples personality. All of these characteristics coincide with the philosophical thinking that Chinese people have always advocated. Chinese tea culture is a system that concentrates the essential of traditional Chinese thoughts.2. The unity of material and spirit. Tea culture is an intermediary culture that combines material culture and spiritual culture perfectly. Tea as a kind of material has its own exceedingly rich form and style. Also its taste, color, odor has their own characteristics, forming a kind of abundant culture. People express their homage, etiquette through tea which processes a special spiritual connotation.3. The unity of elegant and popular. Since ancient times, China has “lute-playing, chess, calligraphy, painting,poem, liquor, tea” and “fuel, rice, cooking oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea” these two statements from which we can see that tea culture is a wildly appealing culture. It is refined and popular in the process of its development.4.The unity of utility and entertainment. Tea is one of the economic crops and it is a kind of beverage that wildly consumed by people. Modern medical research the effects of the main ingredient is tea polyphenols, which has a variety of health care functions. Drinking tea can make a long life. Drinking tea can lose weight. Severing and drinking tea by yourself can help banish fatigue and frustration, improve your thinking ability and inspire you with enthusiasm. Tea is a thirst quencher and aids digestion of food and adjusts fat metabolism. At the same time, tea is an art of life. People can have a self-entertainment while watching tea performance or enjoying tea culture tourism, etc. The characteristics of western coffee culture Coffee, just like tea in China, also stands in a very high position in western countries. It also shoes the features and culture of western the people. The origin of coffee has a variety of legends. It is said that Ethiopia is the first country that discovered coffee. Coffee has been growing in the wild for a long time, and in the 9th century coffee was first cultivated by people in Ethiopia. The local people think growing and harvesting coffee, like cultivating the soul, the harvesting dreams. On the continent of Africa, the country is the worlds highest coffee consumer. Coffee is wildly spread and as horticulture at Arab Empire was in Yemen. Arab Empire is the coffee planting period. The history of coffee is as rich as brewing itself, dating back to more a thousand years ago. The first coffee plants are said to have come from the horn of Africa on the shores of the Red Sea. Originally, coffee beans were taken as food and not as a beverage. East African tribes would grind the coffee cherries together, mixing the results into a paste with animal fat. Rolled into little balls, the mixture was said to give warriors much-needed energy for battle. Later, around the year 1000 AD, Ethiopians concocted a type of wine from coffee berries, fermenting the dried beans in water. Coffee also grew naturally on the Arabian peninsula, and it was there, during the 11th century that coffee was first developed into a hot drink. Coffee has the function of neutralizing the effect of alcoholic drinks. Drinking coffee regularly can prevent radiation damage. Two or three cups of coffee is the best behavior, which can relieve the pressure at work. One of effect that caffeine has on human body is the improvement of memory. Coffee helps reduce the sesation of tiredness, improves your short term memory and increases your intellectual performance. In general, the characteristics of western coffee culture are enthusiastic, bold, unrestrained liberty and concise. From the comparison, we can see that tea is a gentle beverage requiring preparation and time to sip. The pace is always slow, calm and tranquil, the beverage smoothing. On the other hand, the coffee culture can be fast paced and frantic. For the people in China, they enjoy a cup of tea without adding anything, but the people in western countries prefer to have a cup of coffee with some sugar in it so that it will not such bitter and they can enjoy its perfume better. However, there are still some similarities between Chinese tea culture and western coffee culture. Firstly, both tea and coffee culture have legendary past. Chinese tea has a long history about five thousand years and coffee culture has also developed for a thousand years. Both tea and coffee have become the representatives of eastern and western culture. Secondly, not only the tea but also the coffee has the function of removing mental fatigue and keeping off sleep for some time. And to a certain extent, they can also be good for peoples health. Scientific studies show that tea works effectively against cancer. A strong cup of coffee is considered to a good protection from the effects of malaria. Thirdly, nowadays tea and coffee share the same economic functions. The businessmen usually go to a tea house or a coffee house other than the meeting room, to negotiate and drink tea or coffee at the same time. conclusion Tea and coffee are the most popular drinks all over the world. Tea involves Chinese cultural factors, coffee, on th