The poem after eating has a constant theme of darkness and sleep. The poem is a beautiful one that describes a tea lover that does not have worries and instead enjoys life for what it is. Both the poems “after eating” and “thanking director Li Six for sending new tea from Shu” have a theme of sickness. The writer implies that the tea heals this sickness and cures oneself. In the poem “Sent to Liu from Tongzhu as I leisurely rest,” the tea lover drinks cold tea. In the poem “thanking director Li Six for sending new tea from Shu,” the tea lover is drinking tea that was made from boiling water. These methods of making tea clash with each other, a classic tale of hot vs. cold. Neither tea lover is wrong for drinking cold or hot tea. It is all preference, and both serve their purposes. The anomaly I found was in the poem “Making Fun of the Envoy Chi Shi.” The poem states that a man brought him tea from the shan valley stream and that the tea itself was the color white. I have never heard of white tea, and I thought getting tea from a stream was also strange. The method helps compare and contrasts these different poems. It also helped me look at different words and phrases that I usually skim over in great detail and interest.
