Ep. 140-7 | Tea During the Song Dynasty

The once bitter brew sharing a Chinese character with the one used for a bitter vegetable is now long a thing of the past. Starting around a thousand or more years ago, royals, officials, scholars, and common people are now enjoying tea. The literati of the day (and there were quite a few) write poems and paint paintings, inspired by this beverage that has taken China by storm. We also look at one of the greatest royal patrons of tea in Chinese history, the Northern Song Dynasty Emperor Huizong 宋徽宗 who reigned from 1100-1126 AD.

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