The Classic of Tea茶經

Scroll One卷上

Three chapters on tea while it is still on the mountain and in the shed. Where the plant comes from, the fifteen implements for picking and pressing it, and how the cakes are made between the second month and the fourth. Read straight through, the three chapters follow one cake of tea from the branch to the sealed store. Note the order of Lu Yu’s argument: the ground first, the craftsman second. “Wild is best, garden-grown second” — he puts the grading in the soil, not in the workmanship. Workmanship can only fail to spoil what the ground gave.

I. The Origins一之源

Six paragraphs, one subject each: the tree, the written character, the names, the ground, the uses, and the harm. The last is the most characteristic. One paragraph praises tea; one paragraph warns against it, with ginseng for a comparison. A book written to promote tea ends its first chapter on the words “then all the harm tea can do has been told”.

Tea is a fine tree of the south. It grows to one foot, to two feet, even to some tens of feet. In the gorge country of the Ba mountains there are trees two men cannot reach around; they must be felled before the leaf can be gathered. The tree is like the gualu, the leaf like the gardenia, the flower like a white wild rose, the fruit like the fan palm, the stalk like clove, the root like walnut. 〔The gualu tree grows at Guangzhou. It resembles tea and is extremely bitter. The binglü is of the fan-palm kind; its seed is like tea. Walnut and tea both send their roots downward, splitting the gravel before the shoot will rise.〕

As to the written character, it may take the grass radical, or the wood radical, or both together. 〔With the grass radical it is written 茶, a form given in the Kaiyuan Dictionary of Characters and Sounds; with the wood radical it is written 𣗪, a form given in the Materia Medica; with grass and wood together it is written 荼, a form given in the Erya.〕

As to the names, the first is cha, the second jia, the third she, the fourth ming, the fifth chuan. 〔The Duke of Zhou says: “Jia is bitter tu.” Yang the Halberdier says: “The people of south-western Shu call tea she.” Guo of Hongnong says: “Picked early it is tu, picked late it is ming; some call it chuan.”〕

As to the ground: the best tea grows on weathered rock, the middling on gravelly soil, the poorest on yellow earth. Planting that is not firmed down, setting out that is not close, seldom comes to anything; the method is that of the melon, and there is picking in the third year. Wild is best, garden-grown second. On a sunlit slope under shading trees, purple shoots are better than green, spear-shaped better than bud-shaped, furled leaves better than open ones. Tea from a shaded hillside or valley is not worth picking: its nature is clogging, and it breeds an obstruction in the belly.

As a thing to use, tea is of the coldest nature, and as a drink it best suits a man of austere conduct and frugal virtue. For burning thirst, a clenched chest, a sore head, dry eyes, tired limbs, aching joints, four or five sips will hold their own against the finest cream and sweet dew itself.

Picked out of season, made without care, mixed with weeds, tea will make a man ill when he drinks it. The harm tea can do is like the harm ginseng can do. The best ginseng grows at Shangdang, the middling in Paekche and Silla, the poorest in Koguryŏ; what comes from Ze, Yi, You and Tan prefectures has no medicinal effect at all — and that is still ginseng. How much worse what is not. If a man takes jini root instead and his six ailments are not cured, then knowing what harm ginseng can do, he will know all the harm tea can do as well.

II. The Tools二之具

Fifteen implements for picking and pressing, in the order they are used: picking, steaming, pounding, moulding, drying, piercing, firing, counting, storing. These are not the vessels of Chapter IV — those are for boiling and drinking, and the Siku editors noted that Lu Yu deliberately keeps the two sets apart. Every item is given its material and its measurements: you could build them from this text.

The ying 〔pronounced ying〕, also called a basket, a cage, or a hamper, is woven of bamboo and holds five sheng, or one, two or three pecks. The tea-picker carries it on his back to gather tea. 〔Ying: the History of the Han gives its sound as ying, as in the saying “a basket full of gold is not worth one classic.” Yan Shigu’s note says: “The ying is a bamboo vessel; it holds four sheng.”〕

The stove: use one without a chimney. The cauldron: use one with a lipped mouth.

The steamer may be of wood or of earthenware. It should not be waisted, and the joint is sealed with clay. A bamboo tray inside holds the leaf, tied with a strip of split bamboo so that it can be lifted. When the steaming begins the leaf goes in on the tray; when it is done it comes out on the tray. When the cauldron boils dry, water is poured in through the steamer. 〔The steamer: no band, but sealed with clay.〕 A three-pronged branch of paper-mulberry is then used to spread out the steamed shoots and leaves, for fear the sap should run off.

The pestle and mortar, also called the pounder. The one in constant use is the best.

The mould, also called the form or the frame, is made of iron. It may be round, or square, or flower-shaped.

The bed, also called the stand or the anvil, is made of stone. Failing that, take a block of locust or mulberry wood and bury half of it in the ground, so that nothing can shift.

The cloth, also called the coat, is made of oiled silk, or of a worn-out raincoat or unlined gown. The cloth is laid on the bed and the mould set on the cloth, and so the cake is pressed. When the cake is formed, cloth and all are lifted away and another laid down.

The drying tray 〔pronounced pali〕, also called the little basket or the pangláng, is made on two small bamboos three feet long, with a body two feet five inches across and a handle five inches long. Split bamboo is woven into square eyes, like the sieve a gardener uses for earth, two feet wide, and on this the cakes are laid out.

The awl, also called the piercing knife. The handle is of hard wood, and it is used to pierce the cakes.

The cord, also called the whip, is made of bamboo. The cakes are strung on it so that they can be taken off one by one.

The drying pit is dug two feet deep, two feet five inches wide and ten feet long, with a low wall two feet high built over it and sealed with clay.

The skewer is of split bamboo, two feet five inches long; the cakes are threaded on it to be dried over the pit.

The rack, also called the stage, is built of wood over the drying pit, in two tiers a foot apart, for drying the tea. Half-dried tea goes up onto the lower tier; fully dried, it moves to the upper.

The string 〔pronounced chuàn〕 is made of split bamboo in Jiangdong and Huainan, and of twisted paper-mulberry bark in the gorge country of Ba. In Jiangdong one jin makes a great string, half a jin a middle string, four or five ounces a small string. In the gorges a hundred and twenty jin make a great string, eighty a middle string, fifty a small one. The character used to be written 釧, as in a bracelet, or 串, as in a skewer; it is not so now. Like the five characters grind, fan, pluck, bore and sew, it is written in the level tone and spoken in the departing tone, and as a name for this thing it is written 穿.

The store is framed in wood, latticed in bamboo and papered over. There is a partition inside, a lid above, a floor below and a door at the side with a single leaf. A vessel is set inside holding banked embers, so that a gentle warmth is kept up. In the plum rains of the south the fire is lit. 〔It is called the store because it stores and keeps the tea alive.〕

III. The Making三之造

The process, and how to judge the result. The seven operations take fourteen characters: picked, steamed, pounded, moulded, fired, pierced, sealed. But a whole paragraph goes to the eight appearances a cake of tea may have, and another to the three levels of connoisseurship — the man who can only praise ranks lowest, the man who can only fault ranks second, and the man who can do both ranks first. This is the book’s central passage on judgement.

Tea is picked in the second, third and fourth months.

The spear-shaped shoots grow on weathered rock and rich soil, four or five inches long, like bracken just uncoiling, and are picked while the dew is on them. The bud-shaped grow out of the thickets, in sprays of three, four or five; pick the tallest sprig from the middle. On a day of rain there is no picking; on a clear day with cloud there is no picking. In clear weather it is picked, steamed, pounded, moulded, fired, pierced and sealed, and the tea is dry.

Tea has ten thousand appearances. To speak roughly: some is puckered like a Hu tribesman’s boot 〔the crease a scribe’s awl makes〕; some pleated like the dewlap of a humped ox; some coiled like cloud coming off a mountain; some rippled like water under a light wind. Some is as though a potter had settled fine clay in water 〔that is, levigated clay〕; some as though new-turned ground had been crossed by a sudden flood. All these are the rich and excellent teas. Some is like bamboo sheath, the stems hard and solid, stubborn to steam and to pound, so that the cake comes out coarse as a sieve 〔the characters are written with 离 above and 師 below〕. Some is like a frosted lotus, stalk and leaf withered and changed out of shape, so that the cake looks shrunken and spent. These are the lean and old teas.

From the picking to the sealing there are seven operations; from the boot to the frosted lotus there are eight grades. To call a tea fine because it is glossy, black, flat and even is the lowest kind of judgement; to call it fine because it is wrinkled, yellow and pitted is the second kind. To be able to say both what is fine in it and what is not — that is the first kind. Why? Because tea whose sap has come out is glossy, and tea that holds its sap is wrinkled; tea made overnight is black, tea made in a day is yellow; tea pressed after steaming is flat and even, tea left to itself is pitted. In this tea is no different from any other leaf. Whether a tea is good or bad is a thing handed down by word of mouth.

Scroll Two卷中

One chapter, and the weightiest in the book: twenty-four vessels for making tea, from the brazier that holds the fire to the great basket that carries the whole set away. Each is given its material, its measurements and its reason. This is the earliest complete inventory of a set of implements in Chinese; every object on a later tea table traces back into this list. The order matters — it is not by size but by action: light the fire, break the charcoal, set the cauldron, toast the cake, grind it, measure the water, strain it, ladle it, salt it, pour out, wash up, lay out, pack up.

IV. The Vessels四之器

Twenty-four vessels. Lu Yu sets each name on a line of its own with the description under it — that is how the old editions print it, and this page keeps it by putting the name in bold at the head of the paragraph. The sub-entries (the ash tray under the brazier, the feather brush under the mill, the salt spoon under the salt jar, the paper wrappers under the basket) are also the original’s. Two entries show the man most clearly: the brazier, whose three feet carry twenty-one characters of the Book of Changes, and the bowl, where he argues Yue ware above Xing ware in three rounds. His reason is “green sets off the tea”: a vessel is judged in the end by what it does to the tea.

The brazier 〔with its ash tray〕 The brazier is cast in bronze or iron in the shape of an ancient tripod, three-tenths of an inch thick in the wall and nine-tenths broad at the rim, leaving six-tenths hollow, and the inside is plastered. It has three feet, and on them twenty-one characters in archaic script. One foot reads: “Kan above, Xun below, Li in the middle.” One foot reads: “Balance the five phases and be rid of the hundred ills.” One foot reads: “Cast in the year after the sage Tang destroyed the Hu.” Between the three feet three windows are cut, and one window in the floor, to draw the draught and let the ash fall. Above them are six more characters in archaic script: over one window 伊公, over the next 羹陸, over the next 氏茶 — that is, “Lord Yi’s broth, Mr Lu’s tea.” Inside stands a clay shelf, divided into three compartments. In one is a pheasant, a creature of fire, marked with the trigram Li; in one a tiger, a creature of wind, marked with Xun; in one a fish, a creature of water, marked with Kan. Xun rules the wind, Li the fire, Kan the water; wind raises fire and fire boils water, and so all three trigrams are present. It is ornamented with linked petals, hanging vines, running water and squared patterns. The brazier may be forged of iron or worked in clay. Its ash tray has three feet and stands on an iron dish.

The charcoal basket is woven of bamboo, a foot two inches high and seven inches across. It may also be of rattan: make a wooden last in the shape of the basket and weave over it with hexagonal eyes, and finish the base and the lid as one finishes the mouth of a bamboo box.

The charcoal mallet is made of iron, hexagonal, a foot long, pointed at the head and thick in the middle. A small ring is fastened at the thin end by way of ornament, like the truncheon the soldiers of Hexi and Longyou carry. It may be made in the form of a hammer or of an axe, whichever comes to hand.

The tongs are the ordinary fire-chopsticks, round and straight, a foot three inches long, cut off flat at the top, with no onion-bulb head and no linking chain. They are made of iron or of refined bronze.

The cauldron 〔pronounced fu; also written 釜 or 鬴〕 The cauldron is cast in pig iron — what the founders of our day call quick iron, made by melting down worn-out ploughshares and recasting them. The inner mould is of clay and the outer of sand. Clay makes the inside smooth, so that it washes easily; sand makes the outside rough, so that it takes the flame. The ears are made square, for uprightness. The rim is made wide, for reach. The belly is made deep, for holding the centre. A deep belly means the boil is in the middle; a boil in the middle means the tea powder rises easily; and when the powder rises easily the flavour is full. At Hongzhou they make them of porcelain and at Laizhou of stone. Porcelain and stone are both elegant, but they are not strong and will not last. Made of silver it is perfectly clean, but it verges on extravagance. Elegant it may be, and clean it may be; but for daily use one comes back to silver in the end.

The stand is crossed in the shape of the character for ten, hollowed out in the middle, and holds the cauldron up.

The tongs for toasting are made of small green bamboo, a foot two inches long, with an inch of it left jointed and the rest split, and with them the cake is toasted. The sap of young bamboo comes out over the fire, and its clean fragrance is added to the taste of the tea — though away from wooded valleys there is no getting it. Fine iron or refined bronze may be used instead, for their durability.

The paper bag is of thick white Shan vine paper sewn double. In it the freshly toasted tea is kept, so that the fragrance cannot escape.

The mill 〔and the brush〕 The mill is made of orange wood, or failing that of pear, mulberry, paulownia or cudrania. It is round within and square without: round within so that the wheel may run, square without so that it cannot topple. The trough holds the wheel with no wood to spare. The wheel is shaped like a cartwheel, with an axle but no spokes. The mill is nine inches long and one inch seven tenths wide; the wheel is three inches eight tenths across, one inch thick at the centre and half an inch at the rim, and the axle is square in the middle and round at the grip. The brush for sweeping up the powder is made of a bird’s feather.

The sieve and box The sifted powder is kept in the lidded box with the measure laid inside it. The sieve is made by splitting a large bamboo and bending it round, covered with fine silk gauze. The box is made from a section of bamboo, or of bent and lacquered cedar, three inches high, with a lid of one inch and a base of two, and a mouth four inches across.

The measure is made of a sea shell, an oyster or a clam, or of bronze, iron or bamboo in the form of a spoon or a strip. To measure is to weigh, to set a standard, to keep a proportion. The rule is one square-inch spoonful of powder to one sheng of water boiled. Those who like it weak take less, those who like it strong take more — and that is why it is called the measure.

The water tub is jointed from chou wood, locust, catalpa or zelkova, with every seam lacquered inside and out, and holds one peck.

The filter bag in ordinary use has a frame cast of raw copper, since it is always wet and raw copper grows no scum and gives no rank or harsh taste: refined copper grows scum and iron tastes rank. Those who live retired in hills and valleys sometimes use bamboo or wood, but neither will last a long journey, and so raw copper is used. The bag itself is woven of green bamboo rolled up, sewn with blue-green silk and studded with kingfisher-feather ornaments. It is carried in a bag of green oiled cloth. It is five inches across and the handle is an inch and a half.

The ladle is also called the xi dipper. It is made by splitting a gourd, or carved from wood. Du Yu of the Jin, a secretary of the palace, says in his Rhapsody on Tea: “Ladle it out with a gourd.” The gourd is the ladle. Its mouth is wide, its neck thin, its handle short. In the Yongjia period Yu Hong of Yuyao went up Waterfall Mountain to pick tea and met a Daoist who said: “I am Master Danqiu. I ask that some day you spare me what is left in the bowl and the dipper.” The xi is a wooden dipper. Nowadays they are commonly made of pear wood.

The bamboo stirrer is made of peach, willow or fan-palm wood, or of the heartwood of persimmon. It is a foot long and bound with silver at both ends.

The salt jar 〔and its spoon〕 The salt jar is made of porcelain, four inches across, shaped like a box, or sometimes like a bottle or a jar, and holds the salt flower. The spoon is of bamboo, four inches one tenth long and nine tenths wide. The spoon is a flat strip.

The hot-water bowl holds boiled water; it is of porcelain or earthenware and takes two sheng.

The bowl Yue ware is first; Ding, Wu and Yue prefectures next; Shou and Hong next again. Some put Xing ware above Yue, which is not so at all. If Xing ware is like silver, Yue ware is like jade: Xing is not the equal of Yue, first. If Xing ware is like snow, Yue ware is like ice: Xing is not the equal of Yue, second. Xing ware is white and makes the tea look red; Yue ware is green and makes the tea look green: Xing is not the equal of Yue, third. Du Yu of the Jin, in his Rhapsody on Tea, says: “Choose the vessel, pick the ware, out of eastern Ou.” Ou is Yue. The Yue bowl is best: the lip does not curl out, the foot curls and is shallow, and it holds half a sheng or less. Yue and Yue-prefecture wares are green, and green sets off the tea, giving it a white-and-red colour. Xing ware is white and the tea looks red; Shou ware is yellow and the tea looks purple; Hong ware is brown and the tea looks black. None of them suits tea.

The bowl basket 〔and its paper wrappers〕 The basket is plaited of coiled white rush and holds ten bowls; a charcoal basket will do instead. The paper wrappers are of Shan paper sewn double and cut square, and there are ten of them too.

The brush is made by combing out fan-palm bark, clamping it between pieces of dogwood and binding it, or by cutting a length of bamboo and sheathing it, so that it looks like a great writing brush.

The slop tub holds the water left from rinsing. It is jointed of catalpa wood, made like the water tub, and holds eight sheng.

The dregs tub gathers the dregs. It is made like the slop tub and holds five sheng.

The cloths are of coarse silk, two feet long. Make two of them and use them by turns to keep the vessels clean.

The stand is made as a bench or as a rack, of wood alone or bamboo alone, or of wood and bamboo painted yellow and black and lacquered so that it will fold. It is three feet long, two feet wide and six inches high. It is called the display stand because it gathers all the vessels in and sets them all out.

The great basket takes its name from holding every vessel there is. The inner layer is woven of bamboo strips in triangular square eyes; over it broad strips are laid double for the warp and narrow single strips bind them, pressing across the doubled warp in turn to make square eyes, so that the whole is open and fine. It is a foot five inches high; the base is a foot wide and two inches deep; it is two feet four inches long and two feet wide.

Scroll Three卷下

Six chapters. Boiling and drinking; then the whole written record of tea before the Tang, gathered into one chapter; then the tea districts of the empire; then what may be left out in the open air; and last, a single paragraph telling the reader to copy the other nine chapters onto silk and hang them up. Chapter VII takes more than half the scroll. Lu Yu is not arguing there; he is laying out the evidence first — forty-seven passages from medical books, dictionaries, local gazetteers, poems, family histories, ghost stories and an imperial will, running from the Divine Farmer to his own dynasty. It is the earliest documentary history of tea in existence.

V. The Boiling五之煮

The whole operation: toasting, grinding, choosing fuel, choosing water, the three boils, pouring out, and the taste. The three boils are this chapter’s law — fish eyes for the first, a string of pearls at the rim for the second, rolling waves for the third; past that the water is “old” and is not to be drunk. Salt goes in at the first boil, a ladleful is drawn off at the second and the powder cast in, and at the third that ladleful goes back to quiet the water and raise the froth. The closing passage on the froth runs through six images — jujube flower, duckweed, cloud, green coin, chrysanthemum petals, drifted snow.

In toasting the cake, take care not to do it where the wind blows the embers about: the flame darts like an awl and the heat is uneven. Hold the cake close to the fire and keep turning it. When blisters come up on it 〔pao, pronounced pao〕 like the back of a toad, draw it five inches off. When it has curled and opened out again, go back to the beginning and toast it once more. If the cake was dried by fire, stop when the steam comes through; if it was dried in the sun, stop when it turns supple.

At the outset, with the tenderest tea, it is pounded hot as soon as it comes off the steam; the leaf breaks up but the spear-shaped shoot holds. Set a strong man to it with a pestle of a thousand catties and he will not break it: it is like rolling a bead on lacquer — the strongest hand cannot hold it still. When it is finally done it seems to have neither pith nor bone. Toasted, its joints go soft as an infant’s arm. Then, while it is still hot, it goes into the paper bag, so that the finest of its fragrance cannot get away, and when it is cold it is ground. 〔Of ground tea, the best has grains like fine rice; the worst has grains like water-chestnuts.〕

For the fire, charcoal is best and hard wood next. 〔That is, mulberry, locust, paulownia or oak.〕 Charcoal that has been used for roasting and has taken up the smell of fat, and resinous woods, and broken-up old furniture, are not to be used. 〔Resinous woods are cypress, cassia and juniper; broken-up furniture means discarded utensils.〕 The men of old spoke of the taste of worn-out firewood, and they were right.

For water, mountain water is best, river water next, well water last. 〔The Rhapsody on Tea says: “For water, the streams of Min — draw from that clear flow.”〕 Of mountain water, take the milky springs and the slow flow from rock pools. Do not drink the water that leaps and races: drunk long it gives a swelling in the neck. Where water has branched off into the valleys and stands without draining away, from the height of summer until the frosts a hidden dragon may have left his poison in it; the drinker should cut a channel to let the bad water run off, and dip only when the new spring comes trickling through. River water should be taken far from where men live, and well water from a well much used.

When the bubbles are like fish eyes and there is the least sound, that is the first boil. When the rim bubbles like a welling spring strung with pearls, that is the second boil. When the waves roll and beat, that is the third boil. Beyond that the water is old and not to be drunk. At the first boil, salt is added to the measure of the water, and the mouthful tasted is thrown away 〔chuo means to taste〕 — or would one be leaving it flat and then chasing after the single taste of salt? 〔The two characters mean tasteless.〕 At the second boil, draw off a ladle of water, and with the bamboo stirrer make a ring in the heart of the liquid and cast the measured powder into the middle of it. In a little while the water surges up and spatters; then pour back the ladle drawn off to check it, and so raise the froth.

In pouring out, let the froth be shared evenly among the bowls. 〔The dictionaries and the Materia Medica say that bo is the froth of tea.〕 The froth is the flower of the liquor. The thin is called mo, the thick bo, the fine and light hua, the bloom. The bloom floats like jujube flowers on a round pool; like the first duckweed on a winding backwater; like the mackerel cloud of a clear bright day. The thin froth is like green coins of moss afloat at the water’s edge, or chrysanthemum petals fallen into the wine cups. The thick froth comes of boiling the dregs again: at the boil it piles flower on flower and froth on froth, white and heaped like drifted snow. The Rhapsody on Tea has it: “bright as banked snow, brilliant as the spring bloom” — and so it is.

At the first boil there is a film on the water like black mica, and it must be thrown off, or the taste will not be true. The first bowl is called juanyong, the lasting savour 〔the characters are pronounced jun and yong. What is most delicious is called juanyong: juan is savour, yong is lasting; a savour that lasts is juanyong. The History of the Han records that Kuai Tong wrote a work in twenty chapters called Juanyong.〕 It may be kept in the hot-water bowl, ready to raise the froth and to check the boil. The first bowl, then the second and third, come in that order. Beyond the fourth and fifth, unless a man is very thirsty, he should not drink. From one sheng of water, pour five bowls. 〔The bowls should be three at fewest and five at most. If there are as many as ten people, add a second brazier.〕 Drink them hot, one after another, for the heavy and turbid settle to the bottom and the fine and excellent float above. Let it go cold and the excellence goes off with the steam; and it is the same if you drink and drink and never finish.

Tea is frugal by nature and does not take to being spread thin: spread thin, its taste goes dull. Even with a bowl filled to the brim, half drunk the savour is already scant — how much more when there is more of it. Its colour is pale yellow. Its fragrance is shi 〔fragrance at its finest is called shi; the character is pronounced shi〕. When the taste is sweet it is jia; when it is not sweet but bitter it is chuan; when it is bitter in the mouth and sweet in the throat it is cha. 〔The Materia Medica says: what is bitter and not sweet is jia; what is sweet and not bitter is chuan.〕

VI. The Drinking六之飲

From why one drinks at all to what counts as drinking badly. It opens by setting drink among living things: whatever flies, runs or speaks lives by drinking. Then a pedigree for tea — from the Divine Farmer, through Yan Ying, Yang Xiong, Sima Xiangru, Wei Yao, Liu Kun, Zhang Zai, Lu Na, Xie An, Zuo Si — down to the present, when it is drunk in every house. Then the backbone of the chapter: the Nine Difficulties, each named in one word and answered with one example of getting it wrong.

What has wings flies; what has fur runs; what opens its mouth speaks. All three live between heaven and earth, and all three live by drinking and eating. Far-reaching indeed is the meaning of drink in its season! For thirst, one drinks a gruel; to dispel care and anger, one drinks wine; to sweep away torpor and sleep, one drinks tea.

Tea as a drink began with the Divine Farmer and was made known by the Duke of Zhou in Lu. In Qi there was Yan Ying; in the Han, Yang Xiong and Sima Xiangru; in Wu, Wei Yao; in the Jin, Liu Kun, Zhang Zai, my distant forebear Lu Na, Xie An and Zuo Si — all of them drank it. Flooding over the age and soaking into custom, it is at its height under the present dynasty: in the two capitals and between Jing and Yu it is drunk in every house in the street.

There is coarse tea, loose tea, powdered tea and cake tea; it is chopped, simmered, roasted or pounded, put into a jar or a crock and drowned in boiling water, and this is called steeped tea. Some add onion, ginger, jujube, orange peel, dogwood or mint, boil it through a hundred boils, ladle it up and down to make it smooth, or skim off the froth. This is the water they throw into the gutter — and yet the custom will not stop.

Alas! Heaven raises the ten thousand things and each has its own perfection; but the skill of men goes hunting only after what is easy and near at hand. A roof is what shelters us, and roofs are brought to perfection; clothes are what we wear, and clothes are brought to perfection; food and drink are what fill us, and both food and wine are brought to perfection. Tea has nine difficulties: first the making, second the judging, third the vessels, fourth the fire, fifth the water, sixth the toasting, seventh the grinding, eighth the boiling, ninth the drinking. Picked in cloud and dried at night is not making. Chewing for the taste and sniffing for the scent is not judging. A rank cauldron and a tainted bowl are not vessels. Greasy wood and kitchen charcoal are not fire. Racing torrents and standing floods are not water. Cooked outside and raw within is not toasting. Grinding it to a blue-green dust is not grinding. Working it clumsily and stirring it in haste is not boiling. Drinking in summer and giving it up in winter is not drinking.

Where the tea is rare and fresh and richly fragrant, there should be three bowls; where it is a grade below, five. If the company at table comes to five, pour three bowls; if to seven, pour five. With six or fewer, do not count the bowls at all; reckon simply that one person is short, and let the bowl of lasting savour make up for the one who lacks.

VII. The Record七之事

Every notice of tea in the books, from the Divine Farmer to the founding of the Tang: forty-seven passages. A roll of names comes first, by dynasty, and then the quotations one after another. The Siku editors singled out the thirty-eight characters quoted from Sima Xiangru’s lost primer as “found in no other book”: what this chapter preserves is often worth more outside the history of tea than in it. Quotations are given as Lu Yu gives them, and where they differ from the received texts they have been left alone.

The Three Sovereigns: the Fiery Emperor, the Divine Farmer. Zhou: the Duke of Zhou in Lu; Yan Ying, chancellor of Qi. Han: the immortal Master Danqiu; the Yellow Mountain Lord; Sima Xiangru, prefect of the Wenyuan park; Yang Xiong the Halberdier. Wu: the Marquis of Submission; Wei Hongsi, Grand Tutor. Jin: Emperor Hui; Liu Kun, Minister of Works; his nephew Yan, governor of Yanzhou; Zhang Mengyang of the Yellow Gate; Fu Xian, Metropolitan Commandant; Jiang Tong, Tutor to the Heir; Sun Chu, Adjutant; Zuo Taichong, Secretary; Lu Na of Wuxing; his nephew Chu, administrator of Kuaiji; Xie Anshi, General of the Van; Guo Pu of Hongnong; Huan Wen of Yangzhou; Du Yu, palace secretary; the monk Fayao of the Xiaoshan monastery at Wukang; Xiahou Kai of Peiguo; Yu Hong of Yuyao; Fu Xun of Beidi; Hong Junju of Danyang; Ren Yuchang of Le’an; Qin Jing of Xuancheng; Shan Daokai of Dunhuang; the wife of Chen Wu of Shan county; the old woman of Guangling; Shan Qianzhi of Henei. Later Wei: Wang Su of Langye. Song: Liu Ziluan, Prince of Xin’an; his brother Liu Zishang, Prince of Yuzhang; Linghui, sister of Bao Zhao; the monk Tanji of Bagong Mountain. Qi: Emperor Wu, Shizu. Liang: Liu the Commandant; Master Tao Hongjing. The present dynasty: Xu Ji, Duke of Ying.

The Divine Farmer’s Book of Food: “Tea taken over a long time gives a man strength and gladdens his mind.”

The Duke of Zhou, in the Erya: “Jia is bitter tu.” The Guangya says: “Between Jing and Ba they pick the leaf and make it into cakes; if the leaf is old they bind the cake with rice paste. To make a drink of it they first toast it red, pound it to powder, put it in a porcelain vessel and pour boiling water over it, adding onion, ginger and orange. Drinking it sobers a man and keeps him from sleeping.”

The Spring and Autumn of Master Yan: “When Ying was chancellor to Duke Jing of Qi, he ate husked grain, with some roast meat, five eggs and tea greens, and nothing more.”

Sima Xiangru, in the Fanjiang Primer: “Aconite, balloon-flower, daphne, coltsfoot, fritillary, phellodendron, gourd, scutellaria, peony, cassia, rhaponticum, cocklebur, tree-fungus, chuancha (tea), ampelopsis, angelica, sweet flag, mirabilite, zanthoxylum, dogwood.”

The Dialects: “The people of south-western Shu call tea she.”

The Annals of Wu, life of Wei Yao: “Whenever Sun Hao held a feast, no one at table was let off short of seven sheng; even what a man could not swallow was poured out and drained to the last drop. Wei Yao could not manage more than two sheng. At first Sun Hao treated him as an exception and secretly gave him tea in place of wine.”

The History of the Jin Restoration: “When Lu Na was governor of Wuxing, Xie An, General of the Guards, meant to call on him. 〔The History of the Jin says Lu Na was then President of the Board of Civil Office.〕 Na’s nephew Chu, astonished that his uncle had made no preparation, dared not ask him, and privately got ready a meal for a dozen. Xie An came, and all that was set out was tea and fruit. Chu then brought out his feast, with every delicacy on it. When Xie An had gone, Lu Na gave his nephew forty strokes of the stick, saying: ‘Since you could add nothing to your uncle’s credit, why must you foul the plainness I live by?’”

The History of the Jin: “When Huan Wen was governor of Yangzhou he was frugal by nature, and at every banquet set out no more than seven dishes of tea and fruit.”

Records of the Search for the Supernatural: “Xiahou Kai died of an illness. A kinsman of his, called Gounu, had the second sight. He saw Kai come to fetch his horse, and make his wife ill as well. He was wearing a flat cap and an unlined gown; he came in and sat down on the big couch by the west wall where he used to sit in life, and asked the household for tea to drink.”

Liu Kun, in his Letter to his Nephew Yan, Governor of Southern Yanzhou: “The catty of dried ginger, the catty of cassia and the catty of scutellaria I had from you earlier were all things I needed. I am oppressed and out of sorts, and I depend on real tea; get me some.”

Fu Xian, in his Proclamation as Metropolitan Commandant: “I hear that in the south a poor old Shu woman was selling tea gruel, and the market officers broke her utensils; afterwards she sold cakes in the market instead. Why forbid tea gruel on account of one old woman from Shu!”

Records of Wonders: “Yu Hong of Yuyao went into the hills to pick tea and met a Daoist leading three green oxen, who took him up to Waterfall Mountain and said: ‘I am Master Danqiu. I hear you are good at preparing drink, and I have often thought of a kindness from you. There are great tea trees in these hills; they are at your service. I ask that some day you spare me what is left in the bowl and the dipper.’ So Yu Hong set up an offering to him, and afterwards always sent his people into the hills, and they got great tea there.”

Zuo Si, Poem on my Charming Daughters: “I have two charming daughters in my house, and very white and bright they are. The little one is called Wansu, and her speech is clear and quick. Her elder sister is called Huifang, with brows and eyes like a painting. They gallop about the garden and pick the fruit before it is ripe. They covet the blossom in wind and rain and are out a hundred times in an hour. Their hearts are set hard on tea, and they blow and blow at the cauldron mouth.”

Zhang Mengyang, Climbing the Tower at Chengdu: “Ask the way to Yang Xiong’s house, and picture Sima Xiangru’s cottage. The Cheng and Zhuo families piled up a thousand in gold and aped the pomp of the five great lords. At the gate ride guests in company, kingfisher sashes and Wu swords at the waist. Rich food comes in with the season, a hundred blends, subtle and rare. They part the grove for autumn oranges, and fish the spring river from the bank. Black roe outdoes dragon pickle, and the sweetmeats go beyond crab sauce. Fragrant tea is first of the six liquors, its savour spilling over the nine regions. If a man may be at ease in his life, this is a country to take pleasure in.”

Fu Xun, Seven Admonitions: “Grapes and the apples of Dayuan, persimmons of Qi and chestnuts of Yan, yellow pears of Hengyang and red oranges of Wushan, tea seeds of the south and rock honey of the far west.”

Hong Junju, Bill of Fare: “When the greetings are over, there should be tea of the frosted bloom; and when the third cup is drunk, there should be sugar cane, papaya, black plum, bayberry, schisandra, olive, hanging-leopard fruit and mallow soup, a cup of each.”

Sun Chu, Song: “Dogwood comes from the tops of the sweet trees, carp from the springs of the Luo. White salt comes from Hedong and good bean relish from Luyuan. Ginger, cassia and tea come out of Ba and Shu; pepper, orange and magnolia off the high hills. Smartweed and perilla come from the ditches, fine rice from the middle field.”

Hua Tuo, On Diet: “Bitter tea taken over a long time sharpens the thought.”

Master Hu, Dietary Prohibitions: “Bitter tea taken over a long time makes a man take wing; eaten with garlic chives it makes the body heavy.”

Guo Pu, Commentary on the Erya: “A small tree, like the gardenia, green in winter, whose leaves may be boiled into a broth and drunk. Nowadays what is picked early is called cha and what is picked late ming; some call it chuan, and the people of Shu call it bitter tu.”

A New Account of Tales of the World: “Ren Zhan, styled Yuchang, had a fine reputation when young, but lost his wits after crossing the Yangtze. Once when tea had been brought in he asked the company: ‘Is this cha, or is it ming?’ Noticing the odd looks on their faces, he explained himself: ‘I was asking whether the drink was hot or cold.’”

Further Records of the Search for the Supernatural: “In the reign of Emperor Wu of Jin, Qin Jing of Xuancheng used to go up Wuchang Mountain to pick tea. He met a hairy man more than ten feet tall, who led him down the hill and showed him a thicket of tea and then went away. Presently he came back and drew an orange out of his bosom to give him. Qin Jing was frightened, and carried his tea home.”

The Rising of the Four Princes of Jin: “When Emperor Hui came back to Luoyang from his flight, the gentlemen of the Yellow Gate brought tea to His Majesty in an earthenware bowl.”

Garden of Marvels: “The wife of Chen Wu of Shan county was widowed young and lived with her two sons. She was fond of tea, and as there was an old tomb in the grounds she always made an offering at it before she drank. Her sons were vexed at this and said: ‘What can an old tomb know? It is only trouble for nothing,’ and wanted to dig it away; their mother forbade it and they desisted. That night she dreamed of a man who said: ‘I have lain in this tomb three hundred years and more. Your two sons have been for ever wanting to destroy it, and it is you who have protected me; and you have given me good tea besides. Buried in the earth and rotted to the bone as I am, how should I forget the requital of Yisang?’ At dawn she found a hundred thousand cash in the courtyard, long buried by the look of them, though the string was new. She told her sons, who were ashamed, and from then on they made offerings more diligently than ever.”

Traditions of the Elders of Guangling: “In the reign of Emperor Yuan of Jin there was an old woman who every morning carried a single vessel of tea to the market to sell, and the people of the market crowded to buy it. From morning till evening the vessel never grew less. She scattered the money she took among the orphaned, the poor and the beggars by the roadside. Some thought this strange, and the prefectural officers put her in gaol. That night the old woman took up the vessel she sold her tea from and flew out through the prison window.”

Lives of the Adepts: “Shan Daokai of Dunhuang feared neither cold nor heat and used to swallow small pebbles. The drugs he took smelt of pine, cassia and honey, and what he drank was nothing but tea and perilla.”

The monk Daogai, in his Further Lives of Eminent Monks: “In the Song dynasty the monk Fayao, whose lay surname was Yang, was a man of Hedong. In the Yuanjia period he crossed the Yangtze and met Shen Taizhen, who invited him to the Xiaoshan monastery at Wukang. He was nearing the age of retirement, and took tea with every meal. In the Yongming period an edict had the prefecture of Wuxing send him up to the capital with due honour. He was seventy-nine.”

The Family History of the Jiang of the Song: “Jiang Tong, styled Yingyuan, was promoted Tutor to the Heir Apparent Minhuai, and once memorialised in remonstrance: ‘Vinegar, noodles, baskets, vegetables and tea are now being sold in the Western Park, to the discredit of the state.’”

Records of the Song: “Liu Ziluan, Prince of Xin’an, and Liu Zishang, Prince of Yuzhang, called on the Daoist Tanji at Bagong Mountain, and he set tea before them. Zishang tasted it and said: ‘This is sweet dew. Why do you call it tea?’”

Wang Wei, Miscellaneous Poem: “Silent, I close the high chamber; empty and still, the great hall. I waited for you and you did not come; I gather myself now and turn to the jia.”

Linghui, the sister of Bao Zhao, wrote a Rhapsody on Fragrant Tea.

The testamentary edict of Emperor Wu, Shizu of the Southern Qi: “On my spirit-seat take care to make no offering of slaughtered beasts. Set out only cakes and fruit, tea to drink, dried rice, wine and dried meat, and nothing more.”

Liu Xiaochuo of the Liang, Memorial of Thanks to the Prince of Jin’an for a Gift of Rice and Other Things: “The herald Li Mengsun has announced your instructions, and bestowed on me eight kinds: rice, wine, melon, bamboo shoots, pickles, dried meat, vinegar and tea. The scent of Xincheng, the savour of Yunsong; shoots drawn from the river pools, finer than the rarest waterweed; the pick of the borderlands, beyond all careful husbandry. The offering is no bundled venison, yet it is wrapped like snow-white flesh; the fish is no carp of the Tao jar, yet it handles like polished jade. The tea is as good as the finest rice, the vinegar like the sight of a citron. You have spared me the pounding of a thousand miles of grain and the hoarding of three months’ provisions. A small man remembers kindness; so great a goodness is not to be forgotten.”

Tao Hongjing, Miscellaneous Records: “Bitter tea lightens the body and changes the bones. In old times Master Danqiu and the Yellow Mountain Lord took it.”

Records of the Later Wei: “Wang Su of Langye served in the southern court and was fond of tea and of water-shield soup. When he went back north he grew fond of mutton and of curds. Someone asked him: ‘How does tea compare with curds?’ Wang Su said: ‘Tea is not fit to be curds’ slave.’”

Records of Master Tong: “Xiyang, Wuchang, Lujiang and Jinling are fond of tea, and the easterners there all make it clear. Tea has a froth, and it is wholesome to drink. Of things that may be drunk, most are taken from the leaf; but asparagus and greenbrier are taken from the root, and both are good for a man. In eastern Ba there is besides a true tea plant which, decocted and drunk, keeps a man from sleeping. In the villages they mostly boil sandalwood leaf and the large black plum for tea, and both are cooling. In the south, too, there is the gualu tree, also like tea and extremely bitter; ground and drunk as tea it will likewise keep a man awake all night. The salt boilers depend on it, and in Jiaozhou and Guangzhou it is most esteemed: when a guest comes it is set before him first, with aromatics added.”

Records of the Earth: “Three hundred and fifty li north-west of Xupu county in Chenzhou is Wushe Mountain. It is said that on days of festival the barbarians there gather their kinsfolk and sing and dance on the mountain. There are many tea trees on it.”

Atlas of the Regions: “A hundred and forty li east of Linzheng county there is a Tea Stream.”

Shan Qianzhi, Records of Wuxing: “Twenty li west of Wucheng county is Warm Mountain, which produces tribute tea.”

Gazetteer of Yiling: “Tea comes from the mountains of Huangniu, Jingmen, Nüguan and Wangzhou.”

Gazetteer of Yongjia: “Three hundred li east of Yongjia county is White Tea Mountain.”

Gazetteer of Huaiyin: “Twenty li south of Shanyang county is a Tea Slope.”

Gazetteer of Chaling: “Chaling is so called because tea grows in its hills and valleys.”

Materia Medica, section on vegetables: “Ming is bitter tea. Its taste is sweet and bitter, it is slightly cold, and it is not poisonous. It is used for fistulous sores; it promotes urine; it clears phlegm, thirst and heat; it makes a man sleep little. Picked in autumn it is bitter, and is used to send down the breath and digest food.” The note says: “Pick it in spring.”

Materia Medica, section on vegetables, again: “Bitter tea is also called tu, also xuan, also youdong. It grows in the valleys and on the hills and roadsides of Yizhou, and does not die through the winter. It is picked on the third day of the third month and dried.” The note says: “This is probably what we now call tea, also called tu; it keeps a man from sleeping.” A further note to the Materia Medica: “When the Book of Songs says ‘who calls the tu bitter’ and again ‘the jin and the tu are sweet as honey’, in both places a bitter herb is meant. What Tao Hongjing calls bitter tea is of the tree kind, not of the vegetable kind. Ming picked in spring is called bitter tu.” 〔The character is pronounced tu.〕

Prescriptions from the Pillow Book: “For a fistula of many years’ standing: toast bitter tea and centipede together until they smell cooked, in equal parts; pound and sift them; wash the place with a decoction of liquorice and dress it with the powder.”

Prescriptions for Children: “For a child’s convulsions with no apparent cause, boil bitter tea with onion whiskers and give it to drink.”

VIII. The Districts八之出

The tea country of the empire, graded. Eight circuits; in the first five every prefecture is ranked best, next, low or lowest, and the notes name the counties, mountains and monasteries and say which other district the tea resembles — a working comparison table, the most practical thing in the book. The last paragraph is honest: of twelve further prefectures Lu Yu says plainly that he does not know, that tea is occasionally got from them, and that it is said to be very good.

Shannan. Xiazhou is best 〔Xiazhou tea grows in the hill valleys of the three counties Yuan’an, Yidu and Yiling〕; Xiangzhou and Jingzhou next 〔Xiangzhou tea grows in the hill valleys of Nanzhang county, Jingzhou tea in those of Jiangling county〕; Hengzhou low 〔it grows in the hill valleys of the two counties Hengshan and Chaling〕; Jinzhou and Liangzhou lowest 〔Jinzhou tea grows in the hill valleys of the two counties Xicheng and Ankang; Liangzhou tea in those of Baocheng and Jinniu〕.

Huainan. Guangzhou is best 〔what grows at Huangtou Harbour in Guangshan county is the same as Xiazhou tea〕; Yiyang commandery and Shuzhou next 〔what grows on Zhong Mountain in Yiyang county is the same as Xiangzhou tea; Shuzhou tea from Qian Mountain in Taihu county is the same as Jingzhou tea〕; Shouzhou low 〔what grows on Huo Mountain in Shengtang county is the same as Hengshan tea〕; Qizhou and Huangzhou lowest 〔Qizhou tea grows in the hill valleys of Huangmei county, Huangzhou tea in those of Macheng county; both are the same as Jinzhou and Liangzhou tea〕.

Zhexi. Huzhou is best 〔Huzhou tea grows in the Guzhu valley in Changcheng county, and is the same as Xiazhou and Guangzhou tea; what grows at the two monasteries of Shanshang and Rushi and on Xuanjiao Ridge at Baimao Mountain is the same as Xiangzhou, Jingnan and Yiyang tea; what grows at the Fuyi Pavilion on Fengting Mountain, at the two monasteries of Feiyun and Qushui, and on Zhuomu Ridge, is the same as Shouzhou and Changzhou tea; what grows in the hill valleys of the two counties Anji and Wukang is the same as Jinzhou and Liangzhou tea〕; Changzhou next 〔Changzhou tea grows below the north peak of Xuanjiao Ridge on Jun Mountain in Yixing county, and is the same as Jingzhou and Yiyang tea; what grows at Shanquan monastery on Quan Ridge and on Shiting Mountain is the same as Shuzhou tea〕; Xuanzhou, Hangzhou, Muzhou and Shezhou low 〔Xuanzhou tea grows on Ya Mountain in Xuancheng county and is the same as Qizhou tea; what grows at Shangmu and Linmu in Taiping county is the same as Huangzhou tea; Hangzhou tea grows on Tianmu Mountain in the two counties Lin’an and Yuqian and is the same as Shuzhou tea; what grows at the two monasteries of Tianzhu and Lingyin in Qiantang, and Muzhou tea from the hill valleys of Tonglu county, and Shezhou tea from the hill valleys of Wuyuan, are the same as Hengzhou tea〕; Runzhou and Suzhou lowest 〔Runzhou tea grows on Ao Mountain in Jiangning county and Suzhou tea on Dongting Mountain in Changzhou county; both are the same as Jinzhou, Qizhou and Liangzhou tea〕.

Jiannan. Pengzhou is best 〔it grows at Zhide monastery and Pengkou on Ma’an Mountain in Jiulong county, and is the same as Xiangzhou tea〕; Mianzhou and Shuzhou next 〔Mianzhou tea grows at Songling Pass in Long’an county and is the same as Jingzhou tea; what grows on the western hills of Xichang, Changming and Shenquan counties is all good, but past Songling it is not worth picking. Shuzhou tea grows on Zhangren Mountain in Qingcheng county and is the same as Mianzhou tea. Qingcheng county has loose tea and tree tea〕; Qiongzhou next; Yazhou and Luzhou low 〔Yazhou tea from Baizhang Mountain and Mingshan, and Luzhou tea from Luchuan, are the same as Jinzhou tea〕; Meizhou and Hanzhou lowest 〔Meizhou tea from Tie Mountain in Danleng county and Hanzhou tea from Zhu Mountain in Mianzhu county are the same as Runzhou tea〕.

Zhedong. Yuezhou is best 〔what grows on Waterfall Spring Ridge in Yuyao county is called immortals’ tea; the large-leaved kind is quite out of the ordinary, the small-leaved the same as Xiangzhou tea〕; Mingzhou and Wuzhou next 〔Mingzhou tea grows at Yujia village in Mao county; Wuzhou tea grows on Dongbai Mountain in Dongyang county and is the same as Jingzhou tea〕; Taizhou low 〔Taizhou tea from Chicheng in Shifeng county is the same as Shezhou tea〕.

Qianzhong produces tea in Sizhou, Bozhou, Feizhou and Yizhou.

Jiangnan produces tea in Ezhou, Yuanzhou and Jizhou.

Lingnan produces tea in Fuzhou, Jianzhou, Shaozhou and Xiangzhou. 〔Fuzhou tea grows on the north side of Fang Mountain in Min county.〕

Of the eleven prefectures Si, Bo, Fei, Yi, E, Yuan, Ji, Fu, Jian, Quan, Shao and Xiang I know nothing certain. Tea is now and then got from them, and it is said to be excellent.

IX. The Abridgements九之略

When the rules may be relaxed. Picking and pressing in a mountain temple, boiling on a rock among the pines — the vessels that may be dispensed with are struck off one by one. Then the last sentence takes it all back: in a walled town, at a great man’s gate, let one of the twenty-four be missing and the tea is ruined. The two halves are meant to be read against each other: what may be left out on the mountain may not be left out in the city.

As to the implements for making: if it is the season of the cold-food fast in spring, and the tea is gathered by many hands at a mountain temple or a hill garden, and steamed and pounded there and dried again over the fire, then the awl, the cord, the drying pit, the skewer, the rack, the string and the store — seven things — may all be dispensed with.

As to the vessels for boiling: if there is a rock among the pines to sit on, the display stand may go. If dry firewood and a tripod are used, the brazier, the ash tray, the charcoal mallet, the tongs and the stand may go. If one is beside a spring or a stream, the water tub, the slop tub and the filter bag may go. If there are five people or fewer and the tea is already finely ground, the sieve and box may go. If one climbs by the vines and scales the cliff, or is hauled into a cave by a rope, and toasts and grinds the tea at the mouth of the hill, or keeps it wrapped in paper and boxed, then the mill and the brush may go. If the ladle, the bowls, the stirrer, the brush, the hot-water bowl and the salt jar will all go into one hamper, the great basket may go.

But within the walls of a city, at the gate of a prince or a duke, let one of the twenty-four vessels be missing and the tea is ruined.

X. The Scroll十之圖

The shortest chapter, one paragraph long. Copy the other nine chapters onto four or six widths of plain silk and hang them beside your seat, and the whole of the Classic of Tea stands before the eye. The tenth chapter is not a set of illustrations; it is an instruction to turn the book into a thing on the wall.

Take four widths of plain silk, or six, and write the foregoing out on them in sections, and set them at the corner of your seat; and then the origins of tea, its tools, its making, its vessels, its boiling, its drinking, its record, its districts and its abridgements stand before the eye and are kept there, and with that the Classic of Tea is complete from beginning to end.