Chapter IV · The Vessels: Misreadings — The fu cauldron is made of raw iron. Its inner…

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The passage

“The fu cauldron is made of raw iron. Its inner mold is clay, so the inside is smooth and easy to scour; its outer mold is sand, so the outside is rough and endures the flame.”

Misreadings

The most common misreading of “The fu cauldron is made of raw iron. Its inner…” 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.