Lu Yu had an unusual life. He lived in the Tang Dynasty. As a homeless child, he lived in Longgai Temple (寺庙) and studied there including boiling tea. Jingling Prefect (太守) Li Qiwu liked the smart boy when Lu Yu was thirteen. He not only gave Lu Yu books as gifts but also introduced him to a famous teacher. Lu Yu learned from his teacher until he was nineteen. He also made good friends with famous people. They often traveled, tasted tea and talked about poems together.
At the age of twenty-one, Lu Yu started to study different kinds of tea. He left Jingling and traveled around the country to search for famous tea. To study tea picking and tea making skills well, Lu Yu lived a long life as a recluse (隐居者) in Tiaoxi. After that, he lived in Miaoxi Temple, collecting, checking, studying and reading documents (资料) about tea. Over years, he finally wrote the first book on the study of tea. That was the book Tea Classic (《茶经》) , which was also the first book in the world on tea studies. This book has over seven thousand Chinese words, including the production place, the morphology (形态) and the growing environment of tea trees as well as tea picking, tea drinking and tea production tools and methods.
Tea Classic has a great influence on Chinese tea culture. Lu Yu is still called Tea God today.
