Page 80 - @ccess 2 Reader´s Book

TEA SUTRA
Chapter V. Tea brewing
By Lu Yu (Adapted fragment)

Published in Global Tea. Tea and Tao Magazine Hut.
Issue 44 / September 2015

Do not roast tea cakes when the fire has almost gone out,
because a dying flame is not steady and the tea leaves are
then not roasted evenly. You should hold the tea cakes very
close to the flame and turn them often. Once the cakes are
roasted, bumps like those on a toad appear. Then, the cakes
should be held about five inches from the flame to continue
roasting. Wait until the curled-up leaves start to flatten,
then roast the tea one final time. If the tea was dried by fire
in the first place, then the cakes should be roasted until they
steam. If the leaves were dried in the sun, then roast the
cakes until they are soft.

The leaves should be crushed right after being roasted until
they steam or are soft. While the crushed leaves are still
warm, they should be stored in the paper tea envelopes to
seal the aroma. Only after they have cooled down should
they be ground into powder.

Fire for tea should be fuelled by charcoal, but without that
hardwood is the second-best option. Coals which have been
used to roast meat or cook food will infuse the odors
of cooking into the tea. Therefore, always use clean and pure
coals to roast tea cakes or boil water. Those trees that secret
oily resin or decayed timber should not be used as fuel
either. Ancient people often commented that some
food could “smell of weathered timber”, and I could not
agree more! 7

7 This refers to a passage at the Chronicles of Jin that one Official Xun Xu was once
invited into the palace and had a meal with the emperor. He commented that the
food tasted like weathered wood. The emperor questioned the chef and the chef
admitted that he had cooked the meal with some broken parts of an old cart.

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