WEBVTT - Tea: The Splendid Elixir, Part 1 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:06.000 The first cup caresses my dry lips and throat. The 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:10.000 second shatters the walls of my lonely sadness. The third 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:12.959 searches the dry rivulets of my soul to find the 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:17.040 stories of five thousand scrolls. With the fourth, the pain 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:21.440 of life's grievances evaporates through my pores. The fifth relaxes 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.400 my muscles and bones become light. With the sixth, I 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.680 find the path that leads to the immortal ancestors. Oh, 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.479 the seventh cup, better not take it. If I had it. 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.360 The only feeling as the fresh wind blowing through my 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:44.400 wings as I make my way to pung Lie. Welcome 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.879 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:56.360 Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.640 name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.560 we're going to begin a series on t Yes, t 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.240 the beverage and the plant that it comes from. Now, Rob, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.120 you began today's episode by reading a uh, is this 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.399 a poem or a song? This is a poem by 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:19.000 Lu Tong from the Tang dynasty titled Seven Bowls of Tea, 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.480 and it's it's pretty widely cited. I I ran across 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:27.120 various like tea blogs talking about and sometimes saying that 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:31.680 this is overly cited in the literature of tea, uh 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.479 you know, especially in the West. Um and I think 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.560 with good reason because it's it's amazing, it's a It 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:42.600 captures this just intense enthusiasm for tea. And also it's 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.240 essentially about a man drinking way too much tea during 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:48.120 the course of the day that brings him to the 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.320 to the very brink of like blinking out of physical 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.520 reality and going to uh uh to ping lie the 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.919 mystical mountain where you have fantastic creatures and immortal beings. 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.279 So you don't want to do the Seventh Cup because 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.960 that will just essentially you will leave your body in 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.960 the place where you currently reside. Right. But it's not, 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:09.639 it doesn't seem to be a case where you have 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.359 to worry about like crashing with that seventh Cup. It's 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.919 just the seventh Cup is one pleasure beyond that which 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.800 you should grant yourself. You should you have to show 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.960 restraint because you still have stuff to do here in 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.280 the mortal realm. Well, I like the way that the 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.040 poem escalates because at the beginning it's more just about 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.720 the uh. Like the first line is about the sensory 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.880 experience caresses dry lips and throat. It's it's happening in 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.840 the mouth. And then after that it's like mood, you know, 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.000 shatters the walls of my lonely sadness. That's mood stuff. 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.520 That's level two. But beyond that, you're like talking about 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.480 communing with other beings, the path that leads to the 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:52.560 immortal ancestors. Yeah, it gets very spiritual towards the end, transformative. 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.000 Even I've never gone six cups in on caffe aated t, 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:00.640 but I don't doubt it. Yeah, I, um, my wife 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.440 and I probably have, but only through re steeps. We're 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.040 big into um having a picking out a good tea 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.799 that you can resteep several times. So um, I could 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:16.440 probably write a similar poem about, like, you know, steeps one, 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.560 one through four or five on a particular tea that 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.200 I like, because sometimes you get to get the you 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.080 get an interesting tea and it changes like cup Cup 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:30.480 one might actually not be the best cup. It's your 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.919 second or third steep where things maybe become a little 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.640 more nuanced, a little less sharp. I found I found 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:38.880 that to be the case with some of the poor 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:42.640 teas that I really like. I assume just the caffeine 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.040 content become less powerful as as you go through multiple steeps. 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:52.120 That is my understanding, and I believe that is my experience. Uh, 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.840 and that's one of the reasons I tell myself that 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.040 it's okay to have so many cups of tea during 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.280 the course of an afternoon because I'm getting decres east 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.360 returns on on that cup from a caffeine standpoint. But yeah, 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.560 we've touched on tea in the past, we've, but we 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:08.720 I don't think we've ever done a proper deep dive 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.280 on this most splendid beverage US and not just splendid, 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.240 but really one of the most popular beverages in the world. 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.359 You could probably make a case for it being the 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.880 most popular. Uh. There's a great deal of variety to 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:26.920 how it's cultivated, prepared, brood and consumed. And yeah, there's 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.159 no denying its appeal um, and it's importance weaves in 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:36.240 and out of global history, various cultures that factors into mythology, literature, politics, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.120 and much much more. Yes, And to clarify something here, 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.360 I guess we should do this at the beginning. Uh, 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.040 there's a little bit of confusion in English. I don't 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.200 know if it's like this in other languages, but at 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.400 least in English, there are a lot of things that 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.839 we call t that are not made with the T plant. 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.320 So we use the word tea as like a generic 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.960 synonym basically for an infusion. Anytime you you take a substance, 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.440 herbal or otherwise, you expose it to hot water in 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:07.320 order to extract some kind of flavor or chemical compounds 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.920 into the water, and then you drink the water. People 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.000 will call this a tea no matter what it is. 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.839 So you've got herbal teas made from everything from like 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.560 camera meal, to turmeric to mint, or even cases where 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.600 people will will refer to meat based broths as like 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.599 beef tea, but there is no really, But there is 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.320 also the specific tea plant, uh, the leaves of which 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.720 are used to make tea proper. And it is this 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:35.359 plant and it's eponymous infusion that we're going to be 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.880 mostly focusing on in these episodes. And obviously there are 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.480 various blends that have taken place. There's so many teas 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.400 available now, especially loose leaf teas where you'll have like 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:49.920 little bits of dried um um flavor bits that are 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:55.320 not tea, but still the primary ingredient is the dried tea. Now, 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:57.520 I think one of the other exciting things about this 0:05:57.640 --> 0:05:58.880 is and this is gonna be a fun one to 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:00.880 hear from listeners because I know everyone out there you 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.400 have your own individual story with tea. You probably have 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.640 your own cultural story with te um. For my own part, 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.880 I've come to like a number of different teas. I 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.520 want to also throw out an important caveat that I 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.119 would not say that I'm like a t super nerd. 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.279 You know, I'm not like I'm not a connoisseur of tease, 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.039 so I'm not going to be speaking from that vantage 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.400 point in these episodes. But I've grown particularly fond of 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:30.680 these poor ties, which will discuss in due course. UM. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.839 I like several things about them. I obviously I like 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.000 the various tastes. They often have this kind of dark 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.840 earthy or sometimes there's lighter but something There's often an 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:44.960 earthy tone to them um sometimes compared to hey and 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:47.960 and that is a flavor profile that I find it works. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.480 You get interesting results when you do re steeps on it, 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:54.560 because the hay taste might be a bit strong in 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.159 that first cup, but then cup two or three is 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:02.240 generally the comfort zone for me personally. I also really 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.160 love how so many of these particular teas are preserved 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.280 in bricks or pucks. Sometimes you have to break up 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.560 the brick with a little a little specialized knife, and 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.160 I like the ritual of that. I also like it 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.400 when it's a little puck that's already been prepared, often 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:24.160 uh circular, sometimes heart shaped uh today and that can 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:25.560 be a lot of fun as well, and also makes 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.280 it a little handy easy to get into the tea bag. Rob, 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.800 I seem to recall you getting very into the idea of, uh, 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.640 some kind of disgusting nineteenth century way of preparing coffee 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.920 that involved like brick or puck based concentrate, and I 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.120 am I remembering that right. Oh no, no, no, I 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:45.440 think I was interested in the study of like Civil 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.200 War era instant coffee, but none of it sounded like 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.360 anything I wanted to even experiment with. Okay, no, no, no, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:54.400 I just meant that you were interested in the idea, 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.880 and not that like you talking it's virtues as great coffee. No, no, 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.800 it's just it's interesting history, like and It kind of 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:05.160 speaks to the importance of of caffeinated beverages to the 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.120 people who consume them. Uh, you'll have situal like war 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.280 situations where people realize, Hey, these soldiers need coffee, these 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.440 soldiers need tea. How do we get that to them? 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.080 What is the most cost effective means of doing so? 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.360 What happens when the product is bad? How do the 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.680 soldiers in the field relate to this additional indignity. I 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.440 also love how tea is like anything else. Uh, there's 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.440 nothing like great branding. I love some of the names 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.800 of the teas that I have enjoyed, Like there's one 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:39.120 called the Bewitched Emperor, there's one called Evil Snake King, 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.640 and so yeah, I'm I'm obviously these are just just 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.320 the labels given to these and these are the English 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.560 I think these are translations though of what they're actually 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:49.640 called in in the case of these two in China 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:54.240 as well. But I just love the idea that is 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.400 wrapped up in the branding for these as well. It 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.400 makes me feel like I'm I'm not only enjoying an 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:03.760 afternoon up with tea, but I'm engaging in something possibly supernatural. 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.760 M Well, I would say that I sense no other 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:13.400 beverage to have as rich an array of supernatural associations 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.480 as tea. Yeah, I think so, Like there's just there's 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.160 there's so and it's one of the things that's interesting 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.120 but also could probably be intimidating at times as you 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:26.479 get into not just ta culture, but various tea cultures 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.880 that all have various practices of uh, how you're supposed 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.280 to prepare it, how you're supposed to consume it, and 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:37.040 so forth. I mean Macha from Japan is of course 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.400 a great example of this um and uh and just 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.679 on its own can be a wonderful tea. Uh. Yeah. 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.480 There there's just so many, so many fascinating teas out there. 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.079 We're going to touch on some of the tea cultures 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.720 as we proceed through these episodes. But but how about you, Joe, 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:56.080 what's your your personal story with tea? Well, I am 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.240 not really a t drinker, not because I dislike tea. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.600 I mean, and when I have it, I enjoy it. 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.640 But I think it's because for me personally, there is 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.200 simply not room for additional caffeine in my life. I 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.320 have my my morning coffee routine, and I have to 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.840 be very careful even with that, because if I have 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:15.839 too much coffee, I will spend the rest of the 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.480 day and night having visions of the doom of all 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.360 and just hear the screams of a dying planet like 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.240 I get the fear bad. And it's strange. I wasn't 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.960 always like that. I can think years back, I used 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:29.720 to hang out with my friends and drink cup after 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.120 cup of coffee and I was fine. Something happened to me, 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.440 and now I cannot handle that much caffeine. It just 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.920 res me. So after I've had my daily coffee, I 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.320 do not have tolerance for anything else. No no tea proper, 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:47.120 no no second or third cup whatever. Uh So, in 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.240 order to do caffeine eated tea, I think I would 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.280 have to do a full switch out and have it 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.440 instead of coffee, which I've never tried to do. But 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.280 occasionally I do enjoy non tea teas. I like some 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.679 herbal teas, lemon ginger and fusions and stuff, and I 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.440 guess they do make decaffeated tea, but I've just never 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.040 gone down that path. M hmm. Yeah, yeah, I'm like you, 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.920 and that I can't quite put aside the morning coffee 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.120 I've gotten it down to just two cups of coffee, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.240 my initial wake up cup, and then the second cup 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.960 of coffee, and then everything after that for me is key. 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:25.000 Generally it's one tea bag, multiple steeps of set tea bag. 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.960 And it's worth keeping in mind when thinking about the caffeine. Now, 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:30.880 this is just general, and this is maybe maybe can't 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.080 be applied completely across the board, but generally speaking, a 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.280 cup of coffee, standard cup of coffee is gonna have 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:42.080 somewhere between a hundred and hundred twenty milligrams of caffeine. Meanwhile, 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.320 a cup of black tea is gonna have forty milligrams 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.840 of caffeine. Green tea's gonna have thirty. Green and white 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.840 tend to have the least amount of caffeine, followed by oolong. 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.760 These numbers are pointed out by Laura C. Martin, whose 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.320 excellent book A History of Tea is one of the 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.920 sources I'm gonna keep coming back to in these episodes. Okay, 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.280 so even if I did try to incorporate uh some 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.880 tea into my daily routine, it would not be equivalent 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.560 to drinking the same volume of coffee. Yes, that that 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:14.480 seems to be the case. Now that that being said, 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:16.960 there are so many ways to prepare tea, and certainly 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.120 you could drink enough tea, you could drink those six 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.760 fresh steeps of tea and risk transporting yourself to the 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.800 mystic mountains. So it's always always possibility, and everybody's different, 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:30.880 and you know, and and I think our relationship with 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.600 Katheine does change as we age, so naturally, yeah, you 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.040 don't have to be a total tea nerd or immerged 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.240 to any degree within an Eastern culture of tea to 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.120 be into TV, because tea has spread around the globe 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.600 by this point. Tea culture now encompasses everything from British 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:50.240 high tea to Southern sweet iced tea uh Taiwanese bubble 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.520 tea to things like Senegalese um tea and they're you know, 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:58.839 they're Tibetan um uh tea preparation methods that are also 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.040 rather distinct, and again we'll come back to some examples 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:06.000 of these later on. But I thought an interesting place 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.640 to start might be too. Instead of starting with the 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:12.280 familiar or even anything in the actual real world, we 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:17.520 might start off by getting into the mythological origins of 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.120 tea even before we get into the botanical realities of tea, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:23.880 we might start and just purely mythic and I think 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:29.720 mostly Chinese mythological origins for this splendid beverage. Oh wait 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:31.840 a minute, Wait a minute. If we're getting into a 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:36.480 myth about a psychoactive substance and its ancient Chinese myth, 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.319 are we going to meet the divine farmer once again? Yes, 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.319 yes we will, because of course, if it involves something 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.440 that you should eat or shouldn't eat, and is a 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.200 plan of some sort, then yeah, the divine farmer Shinnong 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.680 has to show up Shinnong putting things in his mouth 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.679 for everybody's benefit. That's right. Yes, we've We've talked about 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.200 Chinong before on the show. He's a pretty important figure 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.720 in Chinese mythology and he's tied to myths concerning various 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:10.240 botanical substances. Um. His name literally means divine farmer. He's 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:14.400 a culture bear, a god um. He's attributed with the 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.960 invention of agriculture and the introduction of agriculture to human beings. Uh. 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:21.800 He's an important name in Chinese medicine. He's said to 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:26.160 have invented various farm tools and musical instruments. Uh, So 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.200 there's a lot that this mytholological figure is attributed with. 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.760 And you know, obviously as a mythological figure, he is 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.400 sort of summing up and condensing a lot of the 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:40.680 things that actual human beings did over the course of generations. 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:45.680 Figuring out which plant has a medicinal property or seems 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.800 to which plant is good to eat, which plant will 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.640 kill you, that sort of thing. You should definitely look 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.680 up some images of him because he's He's often depicted 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.680 as this kind of squat older man with bovine or 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.680 ox like characteristic, often kind of wide set eyes and 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.960 and even one of my favorite things about him is 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.200 he often has these kind of nub like horns. Now 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.400 I have seen depictions I think these are more modern, 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.040 but it could be wrong where he has like full 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.960 blown horns, like like a hornet deity. But generally it's 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.800 these kind of nubs where he looks just again, very 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:23.120 very bovine. Would you call him buds? Are those called buds? Yeah? 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:25.360 They kind of look like like buds. Yeah. Like, if 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:27.760 you don't know what you're looking at, you might say, well, well, 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.200 why does that man have two bumps on his head? Uh? 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:35.040 And it's because it's invoking this kind of ox like characteristics, Uh, 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.280 characteristic of the character. And in some tales he was 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.400 said to have had the head of a dragon, others 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:43.840 the head of an ox. And so we do have 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:45.920 to remember that he is a god, of course, so 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.280 it's natural that he might have some qualities like this. 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.920 There are various tales about his birth, including some traditions 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:59.560 that relate his incredible rate of maturity. Uh. Once version 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:01.640 said that he to talk at three days old, he 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.720 had all of his teeth, etcetera. And in some accounts 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.480 his father was an actual dragon. Wait when you said 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.240 had all of his teeth, he meant he was like 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.200 born with all of his teeth, or he had all 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.520 of his teeth when he was three days old. His 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.480 memory serves, and I believe this is related in the 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.120 book Chinese Mythology by yang On and Turner. Uh, there's 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.760 tales it's like, all right, at three days he had this, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.200 At four days he had this. So he's just maturing 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.120 at a rapid rate, where at like three months old, 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.800 he knows everything about agriculture and he's able to teach 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:35.840 it to humanity. Okay, but the basic story with Shinnong 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.240 concerning plants is that he not only gave humans the 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.680 knowledge of agriculture, he also sussed out which plants were 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.800 useful in medicine and which ones were food, and also 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.280 which ones were poison. And he did this, of course, 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:53.040 by testing them all himself. Uh. In some tellings, he's 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.080 not actually eating them. He's thrashing them with a reddish 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.240 brown whip, like a whip that is um. And there's 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.080 a lot you can get into with the symbolism of it. 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.280 I've seen that it's there's something to it that this 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.359 is kind of the color of dried blood. Um. Other 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.840 times he has a cauldron. Uh so yeah. In some 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.119 cases he says to have, you know, some tools that 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.879 he's using. But in many tellings and certainly many artistic interpretations, 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.800 he's testing all of these various botanicals out by eating them, 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.120 and then afterwards he passes judgment. He's like, Okay, this 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.360 this is a plant that would be good from medicine, 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.399 so I'm going to put it into my right hand bag. Uh, 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:31.200 this one is good for food, so it's going into 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.120 my left hand bag. And he sorts it generally like that. 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.480 What about the ones that are poisonous um. He there's 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.000 one tale where if something's poisonous, he just wants to 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.960 stop it. Like, I think there's a story that's related 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.480 about Ginger where originally Ginger was said to be poisonous 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.639 and she took a look at each he like he 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:55.200 checked it out and he's like, yeah, this is horrible. 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:56.920 I want to stomp on it as well. And then 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.800 Ginger had to change in order to be accepted, and 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:04.320 that's and Ginger went underground. Oh beautiful. Yeah, so yeah, 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.160 I want to explore that one more at some point 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.480 because I don't really understand all the meaning going on there, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.000 but it's it's it's interesting. Now. I don't know if 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.560 we've talked about this version of the story with Schino before, 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:18.920 but as yang On in Turner point out, in Chinese mythology, 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:23.880 some versions also state that Shinong is particularly good at 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.680 figuring all of this out because he has a crystal 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:31.960 stomach and he can see everything that's going on inside 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.680 of his own internal organs as he's digesting things. He's 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.840 like tobor He's they open up his his stomach and 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.920 they can look inside and see see all the parts working. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.040 I just I love, I definitely picture this is kind 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.199 of like almost some sort of an android body that 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.879 he has going on underneath his his robes here that 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.040 he can pull it up and yeah, it's just crystal 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.520 organs under crystal skin, and he can observe all every 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.200 little detail going on in digestion. So in some versions 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.159 of the story, the first plant he was said to 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.800 taste was a green leaf, which once he put it 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:09.560 in his mouth and swallowed it, it went on a 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.760 grand tour of his insides, cleaning up everything along the way. 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.080 And again, crystal stomach, so he gets to watch it go. Okay, 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.560 so it's kind of like a dryer sheet or something. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:25.919 I guess. Um. This particular plant was referred to as cha, 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:31.160 which means to inspect, which eventually got confused in later 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.920 tellings with cha, which is the exact same phonetic sound 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:40.639 but a different Chinese character. So the story becomes later 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:45.080 on that Chinong was poisoning himself upwards of seventy times 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.160 a day, testing out the world's plants to determine which 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.480 ones we could use for various purposes, and if something 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:53.560 got on top of him, he got some poison going 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.320 around in his system, he would turn to the cleansing 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.640 power of tea to detoxify himself. Oh so, by the way, 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:04.479 you should not derive actual use value for from that. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:06.680 But yeah, so in this version of the story, tea 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:11.280 is like a universal antidote, right. And my understanding too 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.400 is that older versions of the story are not referring 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.720 to tea, but it becomes tea, and later tellings of 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:23.280 the story. Uh, though though there is this eventually catches 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.439 up with him. Um. I was reading in the in 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.040 that book that one day he has said to have 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:32.159 tried a yellow flower, and upon trying the yellow flower, 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.919 it broke his intestines into pieces. So I guess he 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:40.119 sees this through his stomach, his crystal stomach. Uh. This 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.440 occurs the just the moment he swallows it, and he's 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:45.399 quickly trying to, you know, get himself some tea so 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.800 he can cleanse everything up, but it is too late. 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.719 He dies, and the plant uh that that does this 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.399 to him becomes known as the intestine breaking weed. That 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.719 is brutal in so many ways, especially because it imagines 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:05.439 the testines as brittle rather than elastic. I mean, I 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.760 guess you could think of them that way. Uh, well again, 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.320 it makes me personally think of Shinnong's crystal organs as 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.000 being like glass. And then the shattering is kind of 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:20.400 like when a cartoon character bites on on something that's 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.080 too hard in their teeth. Do that that cartoon shattering thing? 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:25.600 That's what I picture in my mind happening to Shino 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:38.800 here portion on, Yeah, thank thank Now. There's a book, 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:44.240 Shinnong's Herbal Classic, a later Han dynasty book that includes 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.840 a great deal of knowledge related to various botanical substances, 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.199 and this book is attributed to Shinno, likely based on 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:55.199 oral traditions. It includes a passage on t telling us 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:57.960 that it's bitter and share some details about when, how 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.040 and where it grows best. But as Laura C. Martin 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:03.480 points out in a History of Tea, references to tea 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:07.000 in this book were probably not original to it, as 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:09.840 the character for tea itself didn't come into usage until 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.399 uh seventh century. But more on the timeline of T 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.439 in a bit, because we're still for now in the 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:21.400 mythic timeline. Okay, But talking about this book attributed to Sinong, 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.920 the idea is that, uh, probably there were earlier versions 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.240 of the book that did not have the tea passages, 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:30.760 and then recopying through the year's tea passages were inserted 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:34.600 by some editor or copyist exactly. Yes, Now there are 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.359 a couple of other tea related myths here. This is 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.080 one that young on In Turner point out. It's a 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:44.359 creation myth of the the young ethnic people known outside 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:48.560 of China as the Poloang people in your non province. 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.200 And it said that in this creation myth, a hundred 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.639