Chapter VI · The Drinking: Plain reading — As a beverage, tea began with Shennong, the Divine Farmer…

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The passage

“As a beverage, tea began with Shennong, the Divine Farmer, and became known through the Duke of Zhou of Lu.”

Plain reading

In plain English: “As a beverage, tea began with Shennong, the Divine Farmer, and became known through the Duke of Zhou of Lu.”

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.