Chapter I · The Origin · Section 10: At a contemporary tea table — reading “采不时造不精杂以卉莽饮之成疾茶为累也亦犹人参”

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Thesis

“采不时造不精杂以卉莽饮之成疾茶为累也亦犹人参” still has operational value at a contemporary tea table, provided Tang conditions are not silently universalised.

Text

“Picked out of season, made carelessly, adulterated with wild weeds, drinking it brings illness. The harm of tea, too, is like that of ginseng.”

Context

采不时：采摘不合时令。造不精：制作不精细。杂以卉莽：混入杂草。累：害处、弊端。

Evidence

• Collation: “亦犹人参"四库本作"亦犹人参”，各本一致。此句以人参为喻：人参本是良药，用法不当反成其害。
• Existing readings: 吴觉农评此句"辨证而客观"：陆羽不因推崇茶就讳言其害，指出"采不时、造不精、杂以卉莽"皆可致病——这种科学态度，正是《茶经》超越时代之处。

Analysis

To repeat this section today is not to copy a Tang utensil list. It is to keep its order of judgment: leaf first, then water and fire, then the table.

Conclusion

The section does not give a universal rule. It demonstrates a method: read the text, the annotation and the Tang context together before making a modern claim.

Source: The Classic of Tea, Chapter I · The Origin, section 10; the original is in the public domain.

Modern tea science would split the sentence into cultivar, soil, light and plucking variables. 吴觉农评此句"辨证而客观"：陆羽不因推崇茶就讳言其害，指出"采不时、造不精、杂以卉莽"皆可致病——这种科学态度，正是《茶经》超越时代之处。 The variables remain useful, but none of them alone explains the cup.

Storage adds another variable: moisture and temperature. “亦犹人参"四库本作"亦犹人参”，各本一致。此句以人参为喻：人参本是良药，用法不当反成其害。 Old and young tea do not share one shelf life, so “the older the better” is not a rule.

As a new reader, I first took “采不时造不精杂以卉莽饮之成疾茶为累也亦犹人参” as a conclusion. Reading the annotation to section 10 again, it is clearly a judgment with conditions attached.