Integrating Tea Culture into Early Childhood Food Education: Pathways and Strategies

Abstract

As one of the important components of the traditional culture of the Chinese nation, tea culture carries millennia of wisdom and the spirit of etiquette, and its unique connotations and significance can offer inspiration and guidance for education. Preschool education is the starting point of lifelong education and a critical foundational period for the budding of young children's cultural confidence and the formation of good behavioral habits. Food education, as the foundation for promoting young children's comprehensive development, needs to be supported by a profound cultural heritage. Integrating tea culture into children's food education can not only nourish body and mind and shape character, but also cultivate in children, through their dietary life, a sense of closeness to and belonging to China's fine traditional culture, making it an ideal bond linking cultural inheritance and food education enlightenment. Grounded in the three-dimensional framework of “natural experience—cultural immersion—life practice,” this study constructs implementation pathways from four dimensions—curriculum integration, practical experience, environment creation, and home–kindergarten collaboration—thereby providing theoretical reference and practical insights for the creative transformation of traditional culture in preschool education.

Keywords

• Tea culture
• Early childhood food education
• Cultural inheritance
• Curriculum integration

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