Chapter III · The Making: Plain reading — The buds that sprout from dense thickets, with three, four…
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The passage
“The buds that sprout from dense thickets, with three, four, or five shoots, are picked by selecting those that rise most boldly.”
Plain reading
In plain English: “The buds that sprout from dense thickets, with three, four, or five shoots, are picked by selecting those that rise most boldly.”
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.