During the Jiaqing era of the Qing Dynasty, a provincial official inspected Baojing Liudu and passed by Liangcha River. After tasting the local tea, he highly praised it and rewarded it with one tael of gold, listing it as a tribute.

So, one tael of gold for one tael of tea—this is no legend.

Tea, as a priceless health product, has long been debated for its worth. A writer once drank coarse tea favored by port workers and found it exceptionally delicious, so he wrote an article praising it. Three or four years later, the writer revisited the place and sought out that same tea, only to learn its price had risen from twenty to one hundred twenty.

The writer asked, "How could it become so expensive?"

The shopkeeper replied, "You might not know, but a few years ago, a writer drank this tea and wrote an article praising it. The tea quickly became in short supply, so the price kept rising."

The writer secretly lamented and said, "I am the one who wrote that article."

"So it's you! For you, it'll be sixty per pound."

The writer suddenly realized: tea itself has no inherent value. If you find it delicious, it is the most valuable tea to you; if you dislike it, even if it is extremely expensive, it holds no value for you.

My own epiphany about tea did not come in a tea shop or from a teacup but in a tea garden.

I asked a tea picker bending under the scorching sun: "How many buds are needed to make one pound of good tea?"

The picker replied, "Five pounds of fresh tea leaves yield one pound of dried tea. One pound of fresh tea has about 6,300 buds—you do the math."

"No wonder tea is so expensive," I almost blurted out.

The tea picker stood up, chuckled, and said, "Good tea is rare and precious because of its inherent quality, not my labor. If I picked a pile of leaves with the same effort, would you buy them?"

My sympathy for the tea picker turned into deep respect.

First, there must be good tea, then a good tea connection. As for the hard work, the tea picker sees it as their duty.

I thought: making tea is like being a person. Humbly strive to be a good person—without complaints, pretenses, or excuses—focus on improving yourself and becoming someone beneficial to others. Only then can you truly claim your worth.

As the ancients said: "Better to earn one promise from Jibu than a hundred taels of gold." Similarly, a good cup of tea, for those destined to enjoy it, is perhaps a rare and serendipitous encounter.

Every cup of tea before you has undergone countless twists and turns, yet it meets you silently with its own fragrance.