Pioneering English Translation of Chinese Tea Studies Terminology, 5th Lu-Yu Tea Studies Journal
http://teaarts.blogspot.com/2010/04/5th-lu-yu-tea-studies-journal.html
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一心二葉 one-tip two-leaf
葉茶類 leaf-tea type:
對口葉 terminal facing-leaf
對口三葉 terminal facing three-leaf
Black Tea Leaf Grading (Note: only used for black tea, in India and nearby.)
Flowery Orange Pekoe 花橙白毫
Orange Pekoe 橙白毫
Pekoe 白毫
Pekoe Souchong 白毫小種
Souchong 小種
Congou 工夫
Bohea 武夷
Fresh Tea Leaf Classification (Note: for all teas, not just black tea.)
Tip 芽
First Leaf 第一葉
Second Leaf 第二葉
Third Leaf 第三葉
Fourth Leaf 第四葉
Fifth Leaf 第五葉
Sixth Leaf 第六葉
http://teaarts.blogspot.com/2010/04/5th-lu-yu-tea-studies-journal.html
Pioneering English Translation of Chinese Tea Studies Terminology
By: Steven R. Jones
5th Lu-Yu Tea Studies Deliberation of Papers Published Journal Conference
Pub: Lu-Yu Tea Culture Institute, 2010.04李瑞河
ISBN 978-986-84204-1-0
首創如此英譯的中文茶學術語
作者: 瓊斯‧史迪芬
第五屆陸羽茶學研討論文發表會 (第39、40屆泡茶師頒證典禮)
陸羽茶藝股份有限公司 , 2010.04, ISBN 978-986-84204-1-0
Pioneering English Translation
of
Chinese Tea Studies Terminology
首創如此英譯的中文茶學術語
_________________________________________________
Steven R. Jones 瓊斯史迪芬
__________________________________________________
Mar. 8, 2010
Tea is our bridge and language is our road to this bridge.
Fig1
摘要Abstract:
激動人心之論文發表會尚稱是大家的潤滑劑,能夠從中得到更多有益的啟發。哲學家說:沉默是一種成熟;思想家說:沉默是一種美德;科學家說:沉默是一種發明;教育教說:沉默是一種智慧;藝術家說:沉默是一種魅力。一項茶文化或歷史背景、茶葉製造方面以及對茶學最基本性認識等等之英文茶學術語,並不是只說得一口尚稱流利的國際英語就夠地。俗語說;學以致用,現在我將這段時間所學的翻譯成英譯茶學術語,也希望能傳遞荼學術語遍及全球。
Where’s my tea terminology dictionary?
To the reader; some of this writing has tea terminology that in not in the dictionary or has a different definition, then we have defined, in many cases while reading this paper, you might notice some Chinese terms adjacent English terms, these are translations and in most cases the Chinese-English Tea Term which gives both terms have the same definition and are interchangeable depending on the language needed C-E or E-C. The main purpose of this paper is to show some of the motives and background for determining tea terms, and to show some working examples, and in a style that accommodates Chinese and English together for us to immediately see and pinpoint the translation. Also the writings, examples, diagrams, and charts, used are for the reader to explore. If you are thinking, “I wish I could read Chinese”. If it was true one thing is, you would know exactly what the meaning is for the Chinese term but you might neglect more in considering the English term. This brings up an interesting factor, that could lead to some biases or thinking too much Chinese and that the English part might seem unacceptable. Since many of these English terms are new in this lexicon or rediscovered from another area of study for use here. Also even if you do understand Chinese one still needs to think more about the English situation, since there is already so much Chinese tea info out there, actually too much. What we are trying to do here is not just translate Chinese-English Tea Terminology but make a never before made Standard Terms of Tea Studies. I will also discuss my own hopes and goals for the furthering the growth and promoting this much needed Tea Terminology in the English language. Because I am well aware that my own mother tongue English or should I say American English, well it does not matter, because the English language now in today’s world does not belong to me or a country. It has become not through planning and rules but from a matter of circumstances the international language of most professional studies and seems to be continuing on this route. So even by translations and teachings I must be accommodating of the cultural needs of the source Chinese term and not be set in an unbending traditional English language rules mode. Because the goal of this whole project is for people to be able to use, write, or speak about tea studies to some extent, and for the reader or listener to be able to understand.
Not just a city that has tea, this is a city with a tea culture.
This is where I fell in love with tea. Taipei ’s culture is from China and China Taipei
Every street, every lane, every alley, and every park, there is tea; tea for buying, tea for public drinking, like water is to some, tea for ceremonies, tea for arts, tea for truly anything. Anyone who has been to Taipei has sampled Taiwan
Many Westerners find Gongfu Tea complicated at first, therefore, we need to make it easy for new comers. There is something I call the 3-Ts which is Tea amount, Temperature, and Time.
泡茶表 Brewing guidelines
泡茶三要素 The Three Ts | |
3-Ts = tea, temperature, and time | |
茶量 Tea | 茶量 amount of tea leaf |
溫度 Temperature | 水溫 water temperature |
時間 Time | 浸泡時間 steeping period |
Getting these related parameters in balanced is an Art. And the variety is vast with oolong teas, green teas, black teas, etc., with a wide range of qualities and prices too. Taiwan Taiwan
The long history of Taiwanese tea in America started with Formosa Taiwan Taipei and entered New York Formosa (Taiwan America white tea is all the craze, white tea comes from China
Overall, Asian teas are not just brewing in Asia; they are on the rise in America as well as in Europe . Examples of popular teas are Chinese Puer teas, Japanese green teas, Indian black teas, and of course, Taiwanese oolongs. And with each tea that travels to a land afar, some of its culture is tucked inside the tea leaf and awaits to be brewed and then it will awake. So please read all the descriptions on the labels to learn as much about that tea as possible; and remember as you read that most are translated which in not a simple task. I tell our students at “Tenfu Tea College
From the other side of the world to find love.
There were many events that have led me from the other side of the world to Asia for over twenty years and counting, mainly in Taipei England Taipei Taiwan
First things first, for every tea book in English; there are hundreds of tea books in Chinese.
Not to say that there is not a sophisticated tea terminology in English already out there. Yet most of the tea terminology and written materials are usually centered on just black tea. Now the Chinese language is rich and very detailed on tea and so much information; there are 10s of tea magazines and 100s of tea books, ranging from arts, science, philosophy, cooking, and much more. Remember every basic type of tea is also made in China China
Right place at the right time.
The main reason I started learning more and more about tea was that this was a product of circumstance. Living in Taiwan
When my wife began taking classes I would take her to and pick her up from school and sometimes I would hang around, at first it was all Greek to me, or should I say Chinese to me, because even though I could speak some Chinese the topic at the school was "tea as in tea studies", and everyone including my wife were using words I never heard of and when we used a Chinese to English (C-E) dictionary my wife would say that is strange the tea term is not in here, so we would pull out the big fat C-E dictionary and again it was not there. These were great dictionaries but not tea specific. I already had some tea books in English but it was not working. So she would explain to me in English what they learned and what the terms were in Chinese. Well after several years, it finally happened, my wife graduated and was a certified Tea Master, I felt so proud of her. She wound up with three major degrees as well as some others. And she started teaching some tea ceremony.
And now her attention including our tea friends turned in to me and they said rather abruptly and often, “hey why don’t you take some classes?” At first I was not only shocked but intimidated because my Chinese at the time was not sufficient enough and my tea knowledge was fair at best. Therefore, I wanted to put this off, I was not in any rush to take classes in a foreign language, but if I did want to learn more, the opportunity in America to learn and take classes for years on tea is unheard of. Except for one and that would be Japanese Tea Ceremony. So here I was in Taipei, in the middle of tea culture, surrounded my brilliant instructors, and at a great school with lots of classes including mostly Chinese but some Japanese, Korean, and even British tea culture. I began slowly taking classes.
At first, I thought of using my English language tea books to help me with my classes, but I found it a hindrance, since the classes were in Chinese. There are some great English materials on tea, but some have very shallow topics and by using different words for tea studies terminology and definitely no standard of usage, so I gave up the English books for awhile and focused on my classes and my Chinese tea books, and many dictionaries English-English, Chinese- English, Chinese-English and Chinese-Chinese, and used the internet, but the most important help was from my guiding wife. I am an advocate for using the internet for language and culture interaction without having to leave home; also there are a lot of great people and websites on tea. And I'm sure you already know there is a lot of junk to navigate through on the internet as well.
After a few years of classes, again wife, instructors, and friends, the question started coming up about when was I going to take the tests (certification exams)? I smiled and laughed calmly and said quite clearly, no way! Why should I be the first Westerner to attempt this act? Those tests are in C-H-I-N-E-S-E; to me it felt like debating rather or not to build the China Wall, by myself! A long story short, I finally did past the certifications as my wife before me did, and I have gray hair now too. After that, what I was finding out was I knew so much about tea, but did not know how to clearly express it in English. I felt frustrated. I had written some things before about some of the tea ceremonies. And Director Tsai and I began slowly at first to translate some simple tea names and tea production processes, and we kept this up until we had a small working vocabulary. And now five years later we have over a thousand terms. And I now teach at the first Tea College in the world, “Tenfu Tea College”, in English and Chinese about tea. This has not only been satisfying, but has helped me much because instruction and practice is the greatest teacher of all.
Those long meetings in his office.
Sometimes I look back thinking when we first started to translate tea terminology, sometimes I would stay up late and finally after a week of searching for an English term to fit the Chinese, I would finally find it! Master Tsai and I had weekly meetings for this, and I would go in to his office smiling and show him my skimpy little list that too me days to complete, and he would calmly look though it and usually slowly pick it a part. I could tell in his tone of voice something was wrong, he would say can you show me the Chinese definition of this word. And we would look through language dictionaries. The silence was deafening and I would say something like "it’s not that good… I think I should think of a better term". And he would say, “Yes I agree”. And after hours of going over each term, I would walk out of the office with my list of let’s say thirty terms and twenty agreed upon. But those last few terms which would be my homework, sometimes was a pain in the…..neck. I would get inspiration in the strangest places so working or on vacation I always carried my new list of Chinese terms that I needed to translate, some terms reminded me of putting a square peg in a round hole.
Pioneering work.
English being the internationally accepted language and having a great amount of professional terminology with many foreigners also working, reading, and writing in the English language, has made it possible to expand many specific terminologies as well as having input from many sides to keep a standard usage. This is not the case where the specialized subject is in a language that is not spoken by many outside the country, and the subject does not have a large common ground of topics outside the country of origin. The problem most common to tea studies English terms is that most don’t exist and tea studies Chinese terms are usually difficult to translate into an English world that does not grow, produce, hardly understands brewing tea, yet does drink it, and few ceremonies except for British teatime culture as well as some others.
What we have tried to accomplish is to make a working vocabulary of English Tea Studies Terminology. Like any translating, in the ideal situation, it is usually best to have the following; an expert with their mother tongue in the language of the source specific terminology. And to have an expert with knowledge and understanding of the specific terminology in both the source and target language, and with the target language as their mother tongue. And of course the two experts must be able to communicate perfectly. But of course this is only in an ideal situation and this would have to be in a perfect world. But my situation is not ideal and my world is far from perfect. But we have tried to do the best possible given the knowledge and resources we have.
Translation is a broad and much discussed and debated field, therefore we have mostly discuss the translating of tea studies for Chinese and English. Another thing we will discuss is the creation of a working vocabulary of tea studies terminology; this list of terms is large and we still are increasing this pioneering work.
The ways of translating tea studies terminology from Chinese to English. First deciding what are the specialized tea studies terms and first setting out an initial list of Chinese terms with proper accepted definitions, then and accurately translate each term’s Chinese definition accurately in to English. Then reevaluate and research any traditional common translations and usage. Sometimes there would already be one exact English term the matched the Chinese term and the job for that term would be done. Other times there would be several very similar terms but not an exact one, and then the task would be choosing one using some agreed standards and a logical system. But at times we also have incorporated some Chinese terms by using one of several Romanization spelling systems and then, if needed spelling it using the modern English alphabet and rules. Also being open to suggestions, and trying not to be bias. And taking into account we are not trying to teach the Chinese language but under some circumstances we have incorporated some Chinese terms. In all that hopefully will make sense in the larger scope of the tea studies English language.
I have taught English for many years; and would like to bring attention to the modern English language for a moment. One important thing to understand is that there is many different regions that speak English around the world, therefore it is good to try to adapt to English the universal language, and one thing that must be done is to make and keep English dynamic and simple as possible, this is what some call International English, the language that is owned by all. In almost every country they learn to some degree a form of English, this is the dynamic international English. At this time it is pointless to argue how important International English is. As a Teacher of English as a Second Language, what is important is how we mother tongue English speakers can try to learn some of the English terms used in other countries as well as accents, and understand there is a need for an international language. And as for second language English speakers please continue to use your English and don’t be shy when making mistakes, not any one person is always correct, and do not feel your English is wrong. Nobody is perfect and you can use English to speak to others, not only first language English speakers, but also second language English speakers, using English as a common ground. Keep more concern on getting your point across using the explanation or correct terminology and less on minor grammar issues.
Is it black tea or red tea? To ponder too much, can be life changing.
Let's look at the consequences of retranslating a term. Here we will examine why the Chinese see black tea as red in color, and why Westerners see black tea as black in color. Before beginning, for those who are not aware, the Chinese term “black tea” is what we call “dark tea” in English, and the Chinese term “red tea” is what we call “black tea” in English. To get a better perspective of tea and color, let’s go back in time. In the beginning tea was “green tea”. Much later in time black tea was made. When this “black tea” was new and not well known, it must have been shocking to see the fresh leaves that have turned from green to copper-red during the fermentation (oxidation) process. And then the tea leaf turning to black after the drying process, then while being brewed (steeped), the black leaf created a red liquid. In Chinese this tea was named “red tea”. Now most agree it is because the liquid is red, but as another thought there is the possibility the tea producers which were aware of this very important process of the leaves reddening and perhaps called it “red tea”. But to the early Western merchants busy in Chinese ports selecting and purchasing loose leaf tea, and no time for tea breaks to observe the teas liquid color and definitely never going to a tea plantation and seeing this reddening fermentation process, they only were concerned with the color of the tea product or dry leaf, and at that time there were two colors or kinds, green tea and black tea. Below is an exercise on the effect and comparison of changing translated terms.
Example:
Below is a table of translations:
Chinese term | English term |
literal translation 直譯 | standard translation 意譯 |
red tea 紅茶 | black tea |
black tea 黑茶 | dark tea |
rooibos tea 路依保斯茶 | rooibos tea or red tea |
Now just as an exercise let’s try to fix this red/black tea.
Below is an “alternate 模擬測試” table of these translations:
Chinese term | English term |
literal translation 直譯 | alternate translation |
red tea 紅茶 | red tea |
black tea 黑茶 | black tea |
rooibos tea 路依保斯茶 | rooibos tea |
Is this clarification or confusion?
In modern times this is a Pandora's Box; by trying to reconcile the translation of black tea to what in Chinese is called red tea, and would then lead to another turn on the Pandora’s Box and that is what we call dark tea which in Chinese is black tea. In other words black tea would be called red tea and dark tea would be called black tea. One last thing is rooibos tea is not a tea, it is tisane and yet sometimes referred too as red tea. Therefore one point is not every English word needs or should be translated to the Chinese tea term equivalent. Even though the tea term “black tea” seems that is was misinterpreted in the past, since then there has been so much use the word, that it is very common. It would not be worth the effort to change this tea English term “black tea”.
Tracing back the roots of when Western culture learned of “black tea” by the Chinese who called it “red tea”; I will admit when I think in Chinese and first glance it looks logical and correct to change it "back so to speak" to red. And if we actually went ahead and did this change, there would be many actions that would have to be performed to do to this correction, like document and refer back to this change of when it took place and changes should be made in dictionaries, new tea books, tea products and common language and such. And for a period of time a notation next to the new term every time, the old term should in some form be amended, in this way it will help future historians and researchers to trace the roots our words today. I feel in the above example the most important factor missing is the heritage of the term “black tea”. To make the word more logical, much heritage and connotation to the term would be at stake.
When translating we need to try to keep things as stable as possible, not only for convenience but for future researchers that might be translating and trying to trace a word’s origin. As I have been on this quest of compiling a tea studies terminology, I have come to this crucial point, every time you create a term it is very important to give a background check and list the other terms that are also used or have been used. This is vital to the authenticity and comprehension of historical facts. Much of histories events unfortunately have been lost due to creditability issues due to blatantly translating the source terms and not using the standard target terms.
A widely used English language grading system for black tea of the Western world.
Here we have a detailed and well used black tea terminology that has been in use for many years in the Western world. There are some grading discrepancies in the particular regions and teas: areas of India, Assam, Darjeeling, and also in Sri Lanka. For the following this is a general basic example of the grading system in India for black teas:
But some of the terms(in full capital letters) are not so self-explanatory. For example there are no flowers in FLOWERY and no oranges in ORANGE China
Example IV: In this table we have the tea leaves types and the relationship to the kind of tea with the fermentation levels.
分成而與或葉茶類芽茶類 Tip or Leaf Type | 茶之分類 Classification of Tea | 發酵程度 Degree of Fermentation |
葉茶類 leaf-tea type | 烏龍茶 oolong tea | 部分發酵 partial fermentation |
芽茶類 tip-tea type | 白茶 white tea | 部分發酵 partial fermentation |
芽茶類 tip-tea type | 綠茶、黃茶 green tea , yellow tea | 不發酵 no fermentation |
芽茶類 tip-tea type | 紅茶 black tea | 全發酵 complete fermentation |
芽茶類 tip-tea type | 普洱茶 、 黑茶 Puer tea, dark tea | 後發酵 post-fermentation |
*Exceptions: White Tip Oolong is a “ 芽茶類 tip-tea type” and Liuan Leaf green tea is a “ 葉茶類 leaf-tea type”, also some of the “ 芽茶類 tip-tea type” teas are actually “全芽心 all-tip”.
The Western derived models for teas have not had such a specific and detailed tea terminology on this very simple topic of just fresh tea leaves and the relation to the kinds of tea. With the table above we can observe the spent leaves and determine what type of leaves and if we recognize the color due to the fermentation we can further determine the classification of tea.
Name that pot and write it down.
Another great void in the tea culture world is personal character descriptors that stem from the ceramic artists of tea ware; these creators make something that is first needed and practical and beautiful. But remember these potter craftsmen that fulfill the need of tea ware for us to utilize, at the same time produce useful art. I usually spend much of my translating of products centered on brewing vessels like teapots or cover bowls.
Here Lin “Li-shrue 林麗雪” with her very conscientious and ongoing work together with me to translate tea ware descriptions, a very good application of using our tea studies terminology. Many of the new tea ware products will pass through her expertise. First she consults with the ceramic artist and writes in Chinese the name and a meaningful and a beautiful description of the piece. Once I see the title and description of the piece, she will also show me a picture or a real prototype and she will begin the task of explaining what the artist is trying to convey and also the name of the tea ware. For me, this is where it begins, first pondering naming the art ware and then describing with a balance of precise English translation while keeping within the bounds of comprehension. In such a way that an English reader could read the product description and find the name of the artistic tea ware appealing and understand the description meaning. These are consumer items so the name and description should make the person feel interested and maybe puts them in a good mood or gives them a feeling of “yes I can see what the ceramic artist is conveying”.
Anyway, like many business tasks fulfilling a need, in this one we wish to please the consumer to some extent that they will buy the product. But for me this is not that difficult or far from how I usually translate in the education field, because I always stay aware the target audience, and it is important to make the translation smooth so it does its purpose, as simple as possible without adverse language that is destructive to the advancement of tea studies and the translation itself.
These “Product Description Sheets” are also printed on cards and placed together with the tea ware. This project is great not only for the Chinese reader, but for the English reader to get the background and character of the particular tea ware. Below is a reprint of one of the tea ware sheets written in the year 2009.
An example below:
***
陸羽產品說明書
Lu-Yu Product Description Sheet
火苗單壺 Flame single pot
進階說明 Detailed Description
質地：瓷器 Material: Porcelain
組件：壺（容積約125cc）x 1 Component: Teapot (approx. vol. 125ml)x 1
生產時間：2009年秋開發 Issue Date: 2009 Autumn
〝點燃希望火苗〞為設計理念。以象形之火苗為紐為之造形；
"Hope flame" design. A flame is a pictograph for the lid knob;
壺把亦是火焰之勢，整體亦如燭台，
the teapot handle is shaped like a blaze, the entirety is shaped like a candlestick as well,
配以火紅的紅釉，散發著燃燒的熱情，並傳遞著希望的光芒。
matched with the fiery red of red glaze, the distribution of the ardent enthusiasm, and light transmission of hope.
***
These Description Cards are wonderful for letting the buyer know that it is a work of art with a theme and has a personal character. In the above example it lets the owner immediately understand the artist’s goal and builds a closeness to this particular teapot “Flame”. As in any language the name has to be catchy, there is a delicate balance of translating direct word for word, by phases, or by being flexible and using similar meanings to achieve similar results. Then the description should echo the name “Flame”, and also use the above strategy to translate and also try to give the writing a flowing rhythm without gaps. Again there is a fine line of being accurate and interesting at the same time.
My life has become intertwined together with tea and my goal of this pioneering project is not to finish it, but to give this English Tea Studies Terminology to the tea community to use and build on and even improve it. Because this task is far from done. There are so many kinds of teas and so many people wanting to drink tea, but they do not understand how to communicate about tea. There is no official tea studies terminology in any language, but I am certain with everyone’s interest in tea and becoming more familiar with the basic terms put forth in our book “Chinese-English Terminology for Tea Studies”, published this year, that we are now able to begin the task of sharing and promoting tea culture together. Remember tea is our bridge and language is our road to this bridge.
Have a cup of tea!
Acknowledgments:
My tea master Prof. “Tsai Rong Tsang 蔡榮章”, a brilliant man who has become my mentor that I respect as my lifelong teacher. He has worked hard creating a tea terminology and classification of the various tea topics. I am grateful to my wife “Chang, Li-Hsiang 張麗香” for her patience in helping me to understand tea and Chinese and even more important Chinese Culture, and helping me with my teaching and translating. Also to my teachers “Lin, Rai-Hsian 林瑞萱”, “Tu, Kuo-Juey涂國瑞”, this list is too long, so I will just say thanks to all my teachers for their knowledge, advice, and support. Also to my classmates, students, and tea friends for all their help and understanding that I still am a foreigner learning.
Profile
關於我自己
◎天福茶學院茶文化系客座講師
* Adjunct Instructor, Department of Tea Culture, Tenfu Tea College
◎陸羽茶藝中心講師
* Instructor, Lu-Yu Tea Culture Institute
◎天仁茶藝文化基金會翻譯人
* Writer and translator, Ten Ren Teaism Foundation
著有, 出版著作
Published Works
◎《茶文化系專業英語》 ( 天福茶學院 ，2008 ，控制號：zyk0014462)
* “Specialized English for Tea”, (2008), Tenfu Tea College
◎《中英文"茶學術語"》 ( 天福茶學院 , 2009 )
* “Chinese-English Tea Studies Terminology”, (2009), Tenfu Tea College
◎《中英文茶學術語》 ( 陸羽茶藝股份有限公司 , 2010 )
* “Chinese-English Tea Studies Terminology”, (2010), Lu-Yu Tea Culture Institute, Co., Ltd.
---the end---
Some of the terms used in the above:
茶青類 Fresh Leaf Type
芽茶類 tip-tea type:
全芽心 all-tip一心二葉 one-tip two-leaf
葉茶類 leaf-tea type:
對口葉 terminal facing-leaf
對口三葉 terminal facing three-leaf
Black Tea Leaf Grading (Note: only used for black tea, in India and nearby.)
Flowery Orange Pekoe 花橙白毫
Orange Pekoe 橙白毫
Pekoe 白毫
Pekoe Souchong 白毫小種
Souchong 小種
Congou 工夫
Bohea 武夷
Fresh Tea Leaf Classification (Note: for all teas, not just black tea.)
Tip 芽
First Leaf 第一葉
Second Leaf 第二葉
Third Leaf 第三葉
Fourth Leaf 第四葉
Fifth Leaf 第五葉
Sixth Leaf 第六葉
首創如此英譯的中文茶學術語
作者: 瓊斯‧史迪芬
第五屆陸羽茶學研討論文發表會 (第39、40屆泡茶師頒證典禮)
Pioneering English Translation of Chinese Tea Studies Terminology
陸羽茶藝股份有限公司 , 2010.04, ISBN 978-986-84204-1-0
Pioneering English Translation of Chinese Tea Studies Terminology
By: Steven R. Jones
5th Lu-Yu Tea Studies Deliberation of Papers Published Journal Conference
Pub: Lu-Yu Tea Culture Institute, 2010.04李瑞河
ISBN 978-986-84204-1-0
