Chapter III · The Making: Terroir — The buds that sprout from dense thickets, with three, four…
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 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.”
Terroir
“The buds that sprout from dense thickets, with three, four…” 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.