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(From "Tu Jing")
[Correction] Transferred from the external category to this entry.
[Names] Li Shizhen said: It is named after its taste.
[Collection and Explanation] Su Song said: Cuzilin grows in the wild mountains and forests of Qiongzhou, Sichuan. The tree is over one zhang (approx. 3.3 meters) high, with lush branches and leaves. In March, it opens white flowers with four petals. In September and October, the fruits ripen, hanging in clusters of dozens, green when raw and red when ripe, somewhat resembling cherries but with shorter pedicels. They are harvested when ripe, dried in the shade, and used with the seeds. Locals preserve them with salt and vinegar for consumption as fruit. Its leaves are sour; the Yi-Liao people collect them and cook them with salt and fish.

[Taste and Properties] Sour, warm, non-toxic.
[Indications] Chronic dysentery that does not heal, hemorrhoids and fistulas with bleeding, heart pain caused by roundworm biting, pediatric malnutrition with roundworms, abdominal distension and fullness with emaciation and yellowing, expulsion of tapeworm segments. Pounded alone into powder, taken with wine (one qianbi dose), it is very effective. Those preserved with salt and vinegar, when eaten, generate body fluids, sober up the drunk, and quench thirst. Excessive consumption causes roughness of the mouth and tongue (Su Song).

(From "Tang Bencao")
[Correction] Transferred from the Wood section to this entry.
[Names] Guo Pu said: Tea picked early is called Tu, late-picked tea is called Ming, also known as [Cha], and people in Shu call it Ku Tu. Lu Yu said: It has five names: one is Tu, two is [Cha], three is [Cha], four is Ming, five is [Cha]. Li Shizhen said: Yang Shen's "Danqian Lu" states that Tu is the ancient character for Cha (pronounced Tu). The "Book of Songs" says, "Who says Tu is bitter? Its sweetness is like shepherd's purse," which refers to this. Yan Shigu said: During the Han Dynasty, the place name Tuling began to change the pronunciation of Tu to Zhai Jia Qie. Some say the Six Classics do not contain the character Cha, which shows a lack of deep investigation.
[Collection and Explanation] "Shennong Shi Jing" states: Tu and Ming grow in Yizhou and along mountain paths. They do not die in winter, producing one leaf every three years.
Wang Gong said: Ming grows in the southern mountains of Hanzhong. The "Erya" states: [Cha], Ku Tu. Guo Pu's annotation says: The tree is small, resembling Gardenia. It has evergreen leaves, which can be boiled to make soup or drink.
Su Song said: Now they exist in Fujian, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Jing, Jianghu, and Huainan mountains, generally called Tu. Tender leaves sprout in spring, steamed and baked to remove bitterness, ground into powder before drinking. This differs greatly from what ancients ate. Lu Yu's "Cha Jing" states: Tea is a fine tree of the south. From one chi to several tens of chi, in Bachuan and Xishan there are trees requiring two people to embrace, cut down for picking. The wood resembles Gualu, leaves resemble Gardenia, flowers resemble white roses, fruits resemble palm nuts, pedicels resemble cloves, roots resemble walnuts. The best grows in rotten stones, medium quality in gravelly soil, inferior in yellow earth. Cultivation methods are like planting melons; harvestable after three years. Sunny cliffs and shady forests. Purple leaves are superior, green are secondary; bud-like shoots are superior, leafy buds are secondary; curled leaves are superior, flat leaves are secondary. Between February, March, and April, the shoot-type tea grows among rotten stones, four to five cun long, resembling newly unfurled ferns, harvested with dew. The bud-type tea emerges from thickets, having three, four, or five branches, harvested at the tips. After harvesting, they are steamed, baked, and sealed dry, resulting in thousands of varieties. Briefly speaking: those resembling the wrinkled boots of Hu people, those resembling the chest of a cow, those resembling clouds emerging from mountains, and those resembling wind brushing water are all the finest teas. Those resembling bamboo husks or frost-covered lotus leaves are poor and old teas. Others include Symplocos buds, Goji buds, and Loquat buds, all treating wind diseases. There are also Soapberry buds, Locust buds, and Willow buds, picked in early spring and mixed with tea for production. Thus, southern tribute teas often mix various leaves. Only Miscanthus, reed, and bamboo sheath leaves are unsuitable; other mountain plant buds and leaves can be blended, with Toona and Persimmon being particularly unique. True tea is cold in nature, except for that from Mengshan in Yazhou, which is warm and treats diseases. Mao Wenxi's "Cha Pu" states: Mengshan has five peaks, with tea gardens on them, the central peak being Shangqing Peak. Once, a monk suffered from chronic cold illness. An old man told him: For tea from the central peak of Mengshan, depending on whether it is before or after the Spring Equinox, mobilize manpower, wait for thunder to sound, and hand-pick for three days. If one liang is obtained, decocted with local water and taken, it can expel chronic illnesses; two liang ensures no disease in front of the eyes; three liang solidifies muscles and bones; four liang makes one an earthly immortal. The monk followed this advice, obtained slightly more than one liang, took it, and recovered before finishing it. The tea gardens on the other four peaks continue to be harvested. However, the central peak is dense with vegetation, obscured by clouds and mist, with fierce beasts appearing occasionally, so human footprints rarely reach there. In recent years, this variety has become slightly more expensive, and its processing is more refined than elsewhere.
Chen Cheng said: In recent times, Cai Xiang described Fujian tea extensively. Only those produced in several places in Bei Yuan, Jianzhou, have properties and tastes slightly different from others. Now exclusively named Wax Tea, offered for imperial use. Ground and made into cakes, sun-dried and fired, the better. Others are stored as buds or powder; if exposed to fire even slightly, they harden and cannot be stored long, losing color and taste. Only a type of bud tea from Dingzhou has properties and tastes somewhat similar to Jian tea. Now ground into powder in Bianzhong, Hebei, and Jingxi areas, it passes off as Wax Tea.
Zong Ying said: Ku Tu is today's tea. Lu Yu wrote "Cha Jing", Ding Wei wrote "Bei Yuan Cha Lu", Mao Wenxi wrote "Cha Pu", and Cai Zongyan wrote "Cha Dui", all very detailed. However, ancients referred to tea as Sparrow Tongue and Wheat Kernel, indicating extreme tenderness. When new buds emerge, growing over one cun long and thick as needles, they are the highest grade because their roots, stems, and soil-water strength are abundant. Sparrow Tongue and Wheat Kernel are considered lower grades, unknown to predecessors.
Li Shizhen said: Tea has wild and cultivated types; cultivated ones use seeds. The seeds are as large as a fingertip, perfectly round and black. The kernel tastes sweet first then bitter, irritating the throat most, while people in Fujian use it for pressing oil. Sown in February, one pit requires a hundred seeds to produce one plant, mostly due to empty shells. It fears water and direct sunlight, preferring shaded slopes. Picked before Qingming is superior, before Guyu is secondary; afterwards are all old tea. Harvesting, steaming, rolling, baking, and manufacturing all have methods, detailed in "Cha Pu". Tea taxation started in the Tang Dynasty under Emperor Dezong, flourished in Song and Yuan, and in our dynasty, was traded with Western Regions for horses. Tea is merely one tree, but below it provides daily necessities for the people, above it assists court taxes; its benefits are extensive. Ancient sages claimed roughly that Tang people valued tea, and tea varieties increased. Yazhou's Mengding, Shihua, Luya, and Guya were first; Jianning's Bei Yuan Longfeng Tuan was for tribute. Sichuan teas included Dongchuan's Shenquan Shoumu, Xiazhou's Bijian Mingyue, Kuizhou's Zhenxiang, Qiongzhou's Huojing, Si'an/Qianyang's Duru, Jiading's Emei, Luzhou's Naxi, and Yulei's Shaping. Chu teas included Jingzhou's Zhangxianzhang, Hunan's Bailu, Changsha's Tiese, Qizhou/Qimen's Tuanmian, Shouzhou's Huoshan Huangya, Luzhou's Lu'an Yingshan, Wuchang's Fanshan, Yuezhou's Baling, Chenzhou's Xupu, and Hunan's Baoqing and Chaling. Wu-Yue teas included Huzhou's Guzhi Zisun, Fuzhou's Fangshan Shengya, Hongzhou's Bailu, Shuangjing's Bai Mao, Lushan's Yunwu, Changzhou's Yangxian, Chizhou's Jiuhua, Yashan's Yangpo, Yuanzhou's Jieqiao, Mozhou's Jiukeng, Xuanzhou's Yangkeng, Jinhua's Ju'yan, and Kuaiji's Rizu. All are famous tea-producing areas. There are many others, even more mixed and impure. According to Tao Hongjing's annotation on bitter vegetables: Youyang, Wuchang, Lujiang, and Jinling all have good Ming, pleasant to drink. All consumed items, including Ming, tree leaves, Asparagus cochinchinensis seedlings, and Smilax leaves, benefit humans. Other substances are cold and purgative. Also, Badong County has true tea, fire-baked into rolled knots, drinking it also causes insomnia. Common people often boil檀 (Sandalwood?) leaves and large soap plum leaves for tea drinks, both cold and purgative. In the south, there is Gualu wood, also resembling tea. Nowadays, people pick leaves from Quercus, Oak, Symplocos, Vaccinium bracteatum, and Linderia acuminata for drinks, passing them off as tea.
Leaf
[Taste and Properties] Bitter, sweet, slightly cold, non-toxic.
Zang Cong said: Bitter and cold, long-term consumption makes one thin, removes body fat, and causes insomnia. Drinking should be hot; cold causes phlegm accumulation.
Hu Qia said: Eating with Torreya seeds makes the body feel heavy.
Li Pengfei said: Drinking tea when extremely thirsty or after alcohol enters the Kidney Meridian, causing cold pain in the waist, legs, and bladder, accompanied by edema, spasms, and bi-syndromes. Generally, tea should be drunk hot and in small amounts; abstaining is best; fasting is strictly forbidden.
Li Shizhen said: Those taking Glehnia root (Weilingxian) or Smilax glabra rhizome (Tufuling) should avoid tea.
[Indications] Treats sores, promotes urination, clears phlegm-heat, quenches thirst, reduces sleepiness, strengthens energy and improves mood ("Shennong Shi Jing"). Directs Qi downward and aids digestion. Made into a drink, adding Cornus officinalis clears the head and eyes, treats stroke with coma and excessive sleepiness (Hao Gu). Treats summerheat. Mixed with vinegar, treats diarrhea and dysentery, very effective (Chen Cheng). Stir-fried and decocted, treats heat-toxin red and white dysentery. Decocted with Ligusticum chuanxiong and scallion white, stops headache.
[Elucidation] Hao Gu said: Ming tea has cold Qi and bitter taste, entering the Hand and Foot Jueyin meridians. Adding this to decoctions for Yin syndromes removes the cold rejection, and treats hidden Yang, with the general idea being...
Zhang Ji said: Unclear head and eyes are due to heat steaming upward. Using bitterness to drain the heat clears the upper part. Moreover, tea body is light and floating; when picked, the buds just sprout, obtaining the ascending Qi of spring. Although the taste is bitter, the Qi is thin; it is Yang within Yin, capable of ascending and descending. Clearing the head and eyes is based on this.
Wang Ying said: A person loved roasted goose and fried foods, lacking none daily. People feared he would develop carbuncles, but ultimately did not get sick. Investigation revealed he drank a bowl of cool tea every night, realizing tea can resolve the toxicity of fried foods.
Yang Shaying said: Ginger tea treats dysentery. Ginger assists Yang, tea assists Yin, both can dispel summerheat and resolve alcohol/food toxins. One is cold, one is hot, balancing Yin and Yang; whether red, white, cold, or hot dysentery, using it is good. Slice fresh ginger finely, equal parts with true tea, decoct strongly with fresh water and take. Su Dongpo used this to treat Duke Wen Lugong with effect.
Li Shizhen said: Tea is bitter and cold, Yin within Yin, sinking and descending, best at reducing fire. Fire causes hundred diseases; when fire descends, the upper part clears. However, fire has five types, and fire has deficiency/excess. For young and strong people with robust stomachs, excess fire in Heart, Lung, and Spleen/Stomach makes tea suitable. Warm drinking allows fire to descend due to cold Qi; hot drinking allows tea to ascend and disperse due to fire Qi, additionally resolving alcohol/food toxins, making one mentally clear, not drowsy or sleepy, this is the merit of tea. For those with deficiency-cold and weak blood, long-term drinking makes Spleen/Stomach dislike cold, secretly damaging Yuan Qi, Earth failing to control Water, essence and blood secretly deficient; forming phlegm-fluid retention, stagnation and distension, flaccidity and bi-syndromes, jaundice and emaciation, vomiting and reflux, profuse diarrhea, abdominal pain, hernia masses, various internal injuries, this is the harm of tea. Daily life uses often fall into these pitfalls, especially women suffering more; customs change people, unaware. Moreover, true tea is scarce, mixed tea is more abundant, how can the harm be spoken of? Those addicted to tea, constantly chewing and swallowing, long-term damage to Ying and Jing, blood failing to nourish complexion, yellow and withered, weak, holding illness without regret, truly lamentable. Jin Dynasty Gan Bao's "Sou Shen Ji" records: A military officer, after seasonal illness, drank one hu two sheng of Ming tea before stopping. Reducing by one sheng or he became insufficient. A guest ordered five more sheng, suddenly vomited an object shaped like an ox spleen with a mouth. Pouring tea on it, consumed one hu two sheng. Pouring another five sheng, it overflowed. People called it Hu Ming Jia (Bucket Tea Mass). Tea addicts should beware of this. Tao Hongjing's "Za Lu" says: Danqiuzi and Huangshanjun took tea to lighten the body and change bones; "Hugong Shiji" says: Long-term consumption of bitter tea leads to ascension, all are alchemists' false words misleading the world. According to Tang Dynasty Right Remonstrator Mu Jiong's "Preface to Substituting Tea for Drink": Relieving stagnation and eliminating obstruction, daily benefits are temporarily good; wasting Qi invading essence, lifelong burden is great. Gaining benefits credits tea power; suffering harm does not blame tea disaster. Is it not that near blessings are easy to know, distant disasters hard to see? Also, Song Scholar Su Shi's "Cha Shuo" says: Removing vexation and grease, worldly affairs cannot lack tea, yet secretly harming people is not few. Drinking tea on an empty stomach with salt goes straight to Kidney Meridian, chilling Spleen/Stomach, leading thieves into the house. Only rinsing mouth with strong tea after meals removes vexation and grease, Spleen/Stomach unaware, and bitterness strengthens teeth and eliminates caries, deeply grasping the wonder of tea drinking. Ancients called Ming "Nu La" (Slave of Curd), also despising it. Li Shizhen in his youth had vigorous Qi, drinking several bowls of new Ming tea always, slight sweat emitted, muscles and bones clear, feeling very refreshing. Middle age, Stomach Qi slightly damaged, drinking immediately felt harmful, either bloating/vomiting or cold abdomen/profuse diarrhea. Thus recording all sayings to warn enthusiasts. Also, strong tea can induce vomiting, meaning sour/bitter urging discharge is Yin, not that its nature can ascend.
[Attached Formulas] Old six, new fourteen.
Qi Deficiency Headache: Use early spring tea powder mixed into paste, placed in a clay cup inverted, fumigated twice with smoke from forty Psoralea corylifolia seeds, dried and ground fine. Take one zi dose each time, mixed with good tea powder, decocted and taken after meals, immediate effect. ("Yifang Dacheng")
Heat-Toxin Dysentery: "Shiyi Xinjing": Red and white dysentery. Take one jin of good tea, roast and pound into powder, decoct strongly, drink one or two cups. Chronic dysentery patients should also take it. "Zhizhi": Use Wax Tea, red dysentery decocted with honey water, white dysentery decocted with natural ginger juice (with skin) and water. Two or three doses cure. "Jingyan Liangfang": Use two qian of Wax Tea, point with hot water to 70%, mix with one clam-shell of sesame oil and take, abdominal pain and profuse stool stop shortly after. Effective for a youth. Another formula: Wax tea powder mixed with white plum flesh into pills. Red dysentery with Licorice decoction, white dysentery with Mume decoction, 100 pills each. Another formula: Jian tea decocted with vinegar, taken hot, stops immediately.
Blood in Stool: Ying-Wei Qi deficiency, or wind-pathogen invasion, or eating raw/cold food, or fried/spicy food, or overeating, accumulating heat in intestines, injuring Spleen/Stomach, feces not gathering, stool clearing with blood, umbilical/abdominal pain, tenesmus, and all blood loss from alcohol toxin, all treated. Use half jin of fine tea (ground), five Chuan Baiyaojian (burned to retain char). Take two qian each time, with rice drink, twice daily. ("...")
Postpartum Constipation: Mix Scallion juice with Wax Tea powder, make 100 pills, take with tea for natural passage. Do not use Rhubarb purgatives; purging means death in hundreds of cases. (Guo Jizhong "Furen Fang")
Long-term Heart Pain (10 or 5 years): Decoct Hu tea, mix evenly with first-run vinegar, take well.
Severe Lower Back Pain Difficult to Turn: Decoct five he of tea, add two he of vinegar, take in one dose. ("Shiyi Xinjing")
Tea Addiction: One person suffered this; an alchemist instructed to fill a new shoe with tea until full, eat/drink freely until empty, refill another shoe, repeat three times, naturally stop eating/drinking. Men use women's shoes, women use men's shoes, using them indeed cures. ("...")
Resolve Various Poisons: Bud tea and Alum in equal parts, grind to powder, mix with cold water and take. ("Jianbian Fang")
Smallpox Itching: Burn tea smoke in the room to constantly fumigate.
Scrotal Sores: Use Wax Face Tea, grind to powder. First wash with Licorice decoction, then apply externally, excellent. ("Jingyan Fang")
Interdigital Erosion: Chew tea leaves and apply, effective. ("Shesheng Fang")
Urethritis Ulcers: Initially like millet grains, gradually enlarging to beans, larger like fire-brand blisters, severe pain. Quickly use grass tea or Wax Tea, mix with raw oil and apply. Upon application, pain stops immediately. ("Shengjin...")
Wind-Phlegm Epilepsy: Tea buds and Gardenia fruits, one liang each. Decoct strong juice, drink one bowl. Wait a while, induce vomiting. ("...")
Colic with Vexation: One qian tea powder decocted in water, mix with one qian dried ginger powder, take for relief. ("Shengji Zonglu")
Amenorrhea: One bottle of tea liquor, add a little rock sugar, expose overnight, take. Even three-month fetus will pass, do not underestimate. (Bao Shi)
Phlegm-Wheezing Cough, Unable to Sleep: One liang good fine tea, one liang white silkworm pupae, grind to powder, place in bowl, cover, pour one small cup of boiling water. Before bed, add more water and take. ("Ruizhutang Fang")
Tea Seeds
[Taste and Properties] Bitter, cold, toxic.
[Indications] Asthmatic急促 cough, remove phlegm crusts. Pound kernels to wash clothes, remove grease (Li Shizhen).
[Attached Formulas] New three.
Upper Body Asthma急促 with Occasional Cough: Tea seeds and Lily bulbs in equal parts. Grind to powder, honey-pill sized as wutong seeds. Take seven pills each time, with fresh drawn water. ("...")
Asthma/Cough, regardless of adult/child: Use a little rice washing water to grind tea seeds, drip into nose, let patient inhale and swallow. Bite bamboo tube, saliva comes out like thread after a short while. Not more than two or three times to eradicate roots, repeatedly verified. ("Jingyan Liangfang") Head ringing, resembling insect boring, named Da Baiyi: Grind tea seeds to powder, blow into nose, effective. (Yang Gong "Yifang Miaoya")