Chapter I · The Origin: Plain reading — Wild tea is best; that of the garden is inferior…
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
.jpg){kind=link}
The passage
“Wild tea is best; that of the garden is inferior. On sunny cliffs beneath shady woods, the purple buds are best and the green ones inferior; buds like bamboo shoots are best, slender sprouts inferior; leaves that curl are best, leaves that spread open inferior.”
Plain reading
In plain English: “Wild tea is best; that of the garden is inferior. On sunny cliffs beneath shady woods, the purple buds are best and the green ones inferior; buds like bamboo shoots are best, slender sprouts inferior; leaves that curl are best, leaves that spread open inferior.”
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.