Chapter VI · The Drinking: Making — Gathering in shade and roasting by night is not true…
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The passage
“Gathering in shade and roasting by night is not true making; tasting and sniffing is not true judging; rank-smelling vessels are not true utensils; greasy fuel and kitchen charcoal are not true fire; torrents and stagnant pools are not true water; raw within and scorched without is not true roasting; powder that flies like dust is not true grinding; clumsy hurried stirring is not true brewing; drinking only in summer is not true drinking.”
Making
Tea is made, not merely picked. The timing of the harvest and the precision of each step decide how much of the mountain survives in the cup.
Fixation, rolling, oxidation, and drying all push the leaf in different directions. A fine raw material can be lost by a careless hand.
Read the old processing sequence as a chain of decisions, not a list of museum objects.
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.