The farmer’s name was Wei Yin. Not only did he have a name, he lived in the time of the Yong Zheng Emperor, of the Qing Dynasty of the Manchurians. The villagers refer to him as the dreamer old guy. He had a dream he saw Guanyin who showed him where to find the tea bush that became Tieguanyin today. Since Tieguanyin started propagation around the 1730s, suspiciously this might be the real starting point story after all. Where’s the Guanyin temple he prayed to? No idea, none existed around there. The temple where the old bush lived is neither Taoist nor Buddhist, but a folk type religion. So did he pray to Guanyin, and she answered his prayers and showed up in a dream?
I believe so. Guanyin is a Bodhisattva who hears all the sounds of suffering. Though the old farmer might in reality have prayed to some weird dieties with firecrackers, still, she heard, she’s not discriminatory as to who you pray to or how many sticks of incense. A true Bodhisattva does not require conformity to a specific religion or ritual, is my view.
Anyway, it all worked out and today, we enjoy Tieguanyin, one of the most glorious teas known to mankind.
Besides, if one ever meets any of these farmers, you’ll see they are incapable of inventing any myths. Most teas are merely originally named ‘Big Leaf’, ‘Medium Leaf’, ‘Small Leaf’…..
So I was wrong. The legend of dreamer old farmer Wei was in fact, a fact.
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