Chapter VII · The History: Plain reading — Wang Meng of Jin loved tea, and pressed it on…

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The passage

“Wang Meng of Jin loved tea, and pressed it on every visitor; the officials dreaded it, and whenever they meant to call they would say, ‘Today we must suffer the water-calamity.’”

Plain reading

In plain English: “Wang Meng of Jin loved tea, and pressed it on every visitor; the officials dreaded it, and whenever they meant to call they would say, ‘Today we must suffer the water-calamity.’”

The point is not to turn the passage into a modern slogan. It is to recover the judgment behind it: what counts as good tea, and why.

For a modern reader, the most useful move is to turn the passage into a short checklist for buying, making, or tasting tea.

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.