Cai Xiang and Record of Tea 蔡襄与茶录

Cai Xiang (1012-1067) was a top politician and tea expert as well as one of the four most successful calligraphers of Song Dynasty. Based on big-dragon tea roll, he invented the delicate looking, meticulously made, and superb tasting small-dragon tea roll, which soon became a nonesuch. Contemporaries exclaimed : gold was easy to get while small-dragon roll was hard to attain. Cai xiang was expert on tea. once upon a time, he visited a good friend. The host prepared small-dragon roll for him on purpose, but Cai Xiang said upon the brst sip,"there must be big-dragon roll in it."The host immediately blamed the kid-servant who prepared the tea. The servant had only to admit that just now more guests arrived. Not having enough time to prepare tea, he mixed the two kinds of roll together. This story is similar to that of Lu Yu telling water but more credible. Cai Xiang was the inventor of small-dragon roll, so naturally he knew it like the back of his hand. Had the kid-servant known this, he wouldn't have dared to ie in front of Cai Xiang.