Chinese Jingshan Tea Ceremony (徑山茶宴) as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage - From 'Qinggui'(淸規) to Digital Tourism Resources

In 2011, the Jingshan Tea Ceremony was included on the third national list of intangible cultural heritage artifacts and was selected as a representative of “Traditional Chinese Tea Manufacturing Techniques and Related Folklore” for the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative List in November 2022. The popular tea ceremony was incorporated during the process of the sinicization of Buddhism, establishing related etiquette on par with Confucian rituals. As Zen Buddhist temples spread in southern China during the Tang dynasty, a trend naturally emerged among monks to combine meditation practices with tea. By the Song dynasty, the writing and transmission of temple regulations clearly reflected the Buddhist tea ceremony. The temple's tea ceremony appears in rituals of Buddhist offerings, ceremonies, and hospitality. The Jingshan Tea Ceremony is a cultural practice that involves serving tea to guests and monks at the Jingshan Temple located in Hangzhou Yuhang. In the daily lives of monks, tea served various purposes and was an essential medium for interactions with outsiders. The term 'Jingshan Tea Ceremony' itself was created through this study, and restoration of the tea rites of the Jingshan Temple was restored in modern times, indicating that it has been 'reinvented' or 'reinterpreted' as part of China's 21st-century cultural development plan. In the process of transforming the tea ceremony into the Jingshan Tea Ceremony, over ten procedures were established by expert researchers, including the collection and classification of literature, verification and restoration of utensils, and renovation of the tea ceremony space. Additionally, efforts are underway to integrate Jingshan tea culture into cultural tourism packages linked to the natural landscape of Jingshan and artifacts related to the tea sage Lu Yu. Ultimately, the restoration (or recreation) of the Jingshan Temple's tea ceremony, leading to its designation as a national intangible cultural heritage and inclusion in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, reflects a national cultural strategy for preservation and utilization.