Discourse on Tea and Wine

In the form of a personified debate, The Treatise on Tea and Wine has tea and wine each set forth their merits and contend over rank, and though brief, it places two representative drinks of ancient Chinese food culture at the same debating table. The text first traces Shennong tasting the hundred herbs and the distinguishing of the five grains, then touches on Xuanyuan fashioning clothing, Cangjie creating writing, and Confucius elucidating Confucianism, setting the tea-wine dispute against the broad background of the origins of civilization and giving a quarrel over everyday food and drink the depth of cultural history. Its language combines parallel and free prose with a brisk rhythm, showing both the liveliness of popular storytelling literature and the orderliness of literati narrative, and it is quite pleasurable to read. This new edition makes this rare text accessible to modern readers and serves well as an introductory work for understanding ancient Chinese tea and wine culture, popular literary genres, and the debating essay. Readers may treat it as a cultural allegory: tea and wine each have their merits, and the contest over rank is itself the attraction. It is suitable for careful reading in leisure and may also be read alongside works such as the Classic of Tea and wine manuals to appreciate the cultural imagination ancients brought to everyday things.