Song Dynasty Tea-Drinking Customs and Poems
两宋饮茶风俗与茶词

As a special etiquette in entertaining guests, tea was popular in every stratum of the Song Dynasty society. All the verses created by either professional poets and the geisha girls centered on this tea\|drinking etiquette. This type of verses, or the Ci, is similar to that which was created for dinner and birthday parties and other social occasions in that they all had the functions of social intercourses, entertainment, and expressing feelings. The appearance of the tea-drinking poems is a significant literary phenomenon and a constructive element of the Song Dynasty tea-drinking customs that enriched the meaning of the tea culture.