Chapter I · The Origin: Plain reading — Picked out of season, made carelessly, adulterated with wild weeds…
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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.”
Plain reading
In plain English: “Picked out of season, made carelessly, adulterated with wild weeds, drinking it brings illness. The harm of tea, too, is like that of ginseng.”
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.