Chapter I · The Origin: Terroir — Tea is a fine and noble tree of the South…

Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0

The passage

“Tea is a fine and noble tree of the South. It may stand one or two feet tall, or reach many dozens of feet. In the mountain gorges of Bashan, there are trees so thick that two men can barely encircle them; one must cut the boughs and pick the leaves from below.”

Terroir

“Tea is a fine and noble tree of the South…” 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.