Chapter I · The Origin: Terroir — Picked out of season, made carelessly, adulterated with wild weeds…
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The passage
“Picked out of season, made carelessly, adulterated with wild weeds, drinking it brings illness. The harm of tea, too, is like that of ginseng.”
Terroir
“Picked out of season, made carelessly, adulterated with wild weeds…” opens the question of terroir: the same cultivar can taste different on a different slope, soil, altitude, or mist line.
The Classic of Tea ranks soils by drainage and minerality. Modern growers still begin with the same questions: water, roots, shade, and air.
When tasting, ask where the tea grew before asking how famous it is. Terroir is not a marketing word; it is a set of physical conditions.
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.