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trees that may still exist are extremely rare. During Lu Yu’s lifetime, cultivation of tea was not, of course, as widespread as it is today.
    He advises tea growers to pick the new shoots, which he thinks are better than buds (in contrast to modern growers, who cherish the buds), and he considers the curled leaf tips to be superior to those that are uncurled.
    The Tea Classic offers specific advice for harvesting the leaves, suggesting that harvest take place only when the weather is clear. Tea leaves four or five inches long should be picked during March, April, or May. Perhaps the following is the best-known quote from The Tea Classic : “The best quality leaves must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like fine earth newly swept by rain.”
    Lu Yu’s masterful work covers the full spectrum of tea in Chinese culture. In Part Five, he says, “After baking . . . [the tea brick] should be put in a paper bag so that it will not lose its fragrant flavor” (a clear indication that paper bags were in use in China during the eighth century!). Much of his impressive expertise at preparing tea concerns the careful selection of water. One oft-told story is that Lu Yu could determine from a cup of tea precisely where the water to make it was collected—either along the shore of a river or midstream. As for his water preference for tea, he says the water from a mountain spring is best, then the water from a river, while the water from a well is of the lowest quality.

    Lu Yu’s explanation of how to determine the best water temperature for making tea is nearly poetic: “When the water first boils, there appears something like the eyes of fishes on the surface, and a little noise can be heard. Then appears something like a spring rushing forth and a string of pearls at the side, this is the second boiling.” The tea, which has been broken off the baked brick and ground into a powder, is added to the water after the “second boiling.” The appearance of the “waves and breakers” is called the third boiling. A dipper full of cold water is added at this point, to “revive the youth of the water” and to enhance the flavor of the boiling tea. If the tea is left in the pot after the third boiling, it is considered “overboiled,” and Lu Yu advises against using it, if one wants superior taste.
    Part Six gives instructions for drinking, and begins with the statement that all beings, including birds and animals, have to drink to live. Lu Yu suggests that this is what water is for, and that wine is used to drown sorrows, but that tea is drunk to avoid sleepiness.
    Tea should be drunk, according to Lu Yu, four or five times a day for those who are “depressed, suffering from headache, eye-ache, fatigue of the four limbs or pains in the joints.” He also writes that bitter tea, combined with the roots of small onions, is good for “children who are frightened and tumble without apparent causes.”
    Although many people were still adding spices and other exotic ingredients to tea, Lu Yu’s clear preference for superior taste (tumbling children notwithstanding) is to add nothing except a little salt, which is put in after the first boiling. As he puts it in the sixth section, “Sometimes onion, ginger, jujube, orange peel and peppermint are used, and it is permitted to boil for some time before skimming off the froth. Alas! This is the slop water of a ditch.”
    The fourth section of the Ch’a Ching is dedicated to the twenty-four implements needed for the preparation of tea. This has been called Lu Yu’s Tea Code and is a precursor for the creation of the tea ceremony,first in China, then later, and more significantly, in Japan. Famous for his attention to detail, Lu Yu gives precise