Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The Classic of Tea

Started reading the first Chapter of Lu Yu's thoughts on Chinese tea:

"Every Tea hour must become a masterpiece to serve as a distillation of all tea hours, as if were the first and with no other to follow..." —Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD.)


A moment translated a thousand years later. A uniquely Mandarin's attitude.

6 comments:

Adrian Baxter said...

Someone just needs to make a translation available online :(

Trent said...

Tim, is that bai mu dan? Whatever it is, it looks excellent.

toki said...

ABx ~ I have to say, I am truly enjoying the translated version by Francis Ross Carpenter.

And Yes, Trent : ) The white peony looks and smell fine, just very different then last couple of years, due to the unusual weather in China.

Cheers ~ T

aneglakya said...

Nice quote ... the essential and the universal of gongfu cha!

Split/Gender said...

I have been reading The Classic of Tea as well. I have found that Carpenter's language if strange, some points I was quite at a loss if his spelling was deliberate or by mistake.
Other wise worth the read. Need to find a copy for my own collection, getting it from the library is not enough.

MatrixPetka said...

Very nice citation, but where did you find it?

 
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