Chapter II · The Implements: Misreadings — The bei drying-pit is dug two feet deep, two and…

Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0

The passage

“The bei drying-pit is dug two feet deep, two and a half feet wide, and one zhang long. Above it a low wall two feet high is built and plastered with clay.”

Misreadings

The most common misreading of “The bei drying-pit is dug two feet deep, two and…” is to treat a Tang observation as a universal rule.

“Wild is better than garden” made sense in a particular landscape and market. It is not a law that every modern tea garden is inferior.

Ask instead: what was the observation responding to, and what part of it still holds?

Reading note

Read the passage once for the image, once for the judgment, and once for the practice it implies.

Practice

• Name one thing the passage asks you to notice.
• Compare it with a tea you know.
• Keep the question open.