Chapter VI · The Drinking: Misreadings — For tea of rare freshness and rich fragrance, pour but…
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The passage
“For tea of rare freshness and rich fragrance, pour but three bowls; for that of the second grade, five. With five guests, serve three bowls; with seven, five. With fewer than six, no fixed count is kept — but omit one, and let the finest essence make up his portion.”
Misreadings
The most common misreading of “For tea of rare freshness and rich fragrance, pour but…” 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.