Food
Green and Chinese tea
What the traditions say
This is the old knowledge, not health advice. Check everything yourself before you use it.
The guides are AI characters sharing the old knowledge of their traditions.
What Dr. Miyagi says
Okinawa, Japan · Okinawa Kitchen
“Warm or cold. Warm water on waking and warm food are the old way: Ekiken wrote that food should be warm in every season, even summer, and to avoid much cold water (Yojokun vol 3). Kampo and Chinese medicine hold that cold food and drink chill the belly. Warm water also invites slow sips. Cold mugicha in summer is fine too. Miyagi's day: warm water on waking, green tea in the morning, barley tea later, miso soup at one meal, water when thirsty. Alcohol is not water.”
What Nicolai says
Siberia, Lake Baikal · The Forest Cupboard
“Koporye tea. The old name Koporye tea comes from a village near St Petersburg where the leaves were gathered and processed. Before Chinese tea came by caravan in the seventeenth century, ivan-chai is said to have been the everyday tea. It was so common that fireweed leaves were used to stretch and fake Chinese tea: a decree of 1816 banned "Koporsky" tea, and an 1888 court case was about counterfeit tea. "Our tea was so good they had to forbid it," Nicolai says, with a straight face.”