A CHINESE POETS WAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19046, 17 December 1923, Page 10

A CHINESE POETS WAY.

HOW TEA SHOULD BE PROPERLY MADE. High tea would have been deemed an abomination by the Chinese' poet Lu Wuh, who held that no food should be taken in conjunction with the most delicious of all beverages, states a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. Lu Wuh maintained, that only throe ingredients are necessary for its decoction —tea. water, and salt—but, each should be selected with care. “The leaves of the tea-plant must have creases like the leathern boot of u Tartar horseman, must curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock; must unfold like the; mist rising out of a ravine: must gleam like a lake touched by the zephyr; and be wot and soft like fine earth newly swept by rain.” According to this authority a mountain .spring furnishes the best watow for _ teamaking, with river water and ordinary spring water next in order of • excellence. “There - are three stages of boiling,? Lu Wuh goes on’ to say. “The 'first: boll is when the little. bubbles like the eye of fishes swim on the: surface! - 'The . second boil' is when the . bubbles, .are . like crystal beads rolling in a'fountain The' third boil is when the billows surge wildly in (lie kettle.” Salt is put in the first boil, tea in the second boil: at the third a dipperful of cold water is poured into the kettle to settle the tea- and_ reyiVe “the youth of the water,” after which the decoction is poured into cups and drunk.