Chapter III · The Making: Misreadings — The bamboo-shoot-like buds, growing in rich rocky soil, reach four…

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The passage

“The bamboo-shoot-like buds, growing in rich rocky soil, reach four or five inches, like young ferns just unfolding; they are picked while the morning dew is still on them.”

Misreadings

The most common misreading of “The bamboo-shoot-like buds, growing in rich rocky soil, reach four…” 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.