Mingji 茗笈

Mingji 茗笈 "Tea satchel" is a book on tea compiled during the Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Tu Benjun 屠本畯 (1542–1622), courtesy name Tianshu 田叔, style Binsou 豳叟. He hailed from Yinxian 鄞縣, Zhejiang, and was associate salt distribution commissioner (yanyunsi tongzhi 鹽運司同知) in Fujian during the Wanli reign-period 萬曆 (1573-1619). Apart from the Mingji, he has also written the books Minzhong haicuo shu 閩中海錯疏 (a commentary on seafood in Fujian), Mingzhong lizhi pu 閩中荔枝譜 (a book on lychee fruits), Yecai jian 野菜箋 (a book on eatable wild plants) and Haiwei suoyin 海味索引.

The Mingji has a length of 2 juan and is divided into 16 chapters covering all aspects of tea cultivation, production, consumption and culture. For each chapter, the author quotes extensively from older books on tea. These quotations are introduced by a eulogy (zan 贊) and critically commented on. Of all quoted books, Lu Yu's 陸羽 (733－804) classic Chajing 茶經 and Cai Xiang's 蔡襄 (1012－1067) Chalu 茶錄 are treated like canons, the text of which is written in different typesetting than the other sources. Unfortunately, the Chajing is not quoted in total, so the Mingji cannot be seen as a systematic commentary on it. On the other hand, the Chajing does not speak about all topics dealt with in the Mingji. The overall arrangement of the book is thus not reasonably well-balanced, and the primary intention of the author is not clear.

The preface of the first printed edition of 1610 was written by Xue Gang 薛岡. Another preface was contributed by Xu Bo 徐{火勃}. The text is enriched by four chapters on various issues of tea written by Wang Sishi 王嗣奭 (1566–1648), Fan Ruzi 范汝梓 (b. 1577), Chen Ying 陳英 (b. 1433), and Tu Yuheng 屠玉衡. The Mingji was presented to the compilers of the imperial series Siku quanshu 四庫全書 by the governor of Anhui but was not included in this collection. Yet it is included in the series Shanju xiaowan 山居小玩, Qunfang qingwan 群芳清玩, Guoxue zhenben wenku 國學珍本文庫 and Meishu congshu 美術叢書.

Another book with the title Mingji, with a length of 30 juan, was written by Xu Bo. It is mentioned in the book catalogue Qianqingtang shumu 千頃堂書目 but it seems to be lost. It is quite probable that Xu's book was written as a kind of revised version of Tu Benjun's book with supplementary information.