The Scholars of Shen Zhou

Learned League is an online trivia game/competition website ( www.learnedleague.com ) where at this point several thousand people compete in four regular competitions per year, plus countless 1-Day and Mini League competitions. I became a member back in 2017 at the invitation of a former college cla...

Does mint tea count? Seriously? I don't drink tea. Which upsets my congregation who are just dying to say, "More tea vicar?" But because people were so determined that I must drink tea or coffee I've started drinking herbal teas because doing so seems like the only way I can convince some...

Someone observed that I seem to like the “nasally women singers” genre. In the last few years I've been making a concerted effort to seek out more female artists, as most of the ones I already listened to were well-established, older or dead, as the case may be (Patti Smith, Nico, Sandy Denny, etc)...

One of Cao Zhi's works, 籍田賦 Jitian Fu (Rhapsody on Tillage) actually contains the following lines: 大凡人之為圃，各植其所好焉。 好甘者植乎薺， 好苦者植乎茶， 好香者植乎蘭，好辛者植乎蓼。 至于寡人之圃，無不植也。 Most ordinary people arrange gardens, by respectively planting whatever they are in favour of. Those who prefer sweetness plant chestnut; tho...

I didn't see any existing topics for tea (which surprised me), only one for Tea Culture, which I think is a separate thing from the discussion of various types of tea, so I am starting a new thread here to talk about tea - favorite teas, tea cultivation and preparation, etc. For historical discussio...

Does anyone know how much about how wide spread drinking Tea was in China during the Later Han? I've read that it was largely medicinal and for Imperial use? Would they have used tea pots to boil it? What kind of material would said pots and mugs be made out of? Thanks in advance guys. In the past ...

Coming back to predestination - God, being outside time, knows already how each of us uses her free will to respond to the expressions of his will through Christ. But God does not unconditionally , which is to say arbitrarily , predestine any man or woman either to glory or to doom. A proper unders...

When you read a post, think of a reply and then notice that you actually already replied several years ago, saying exactly what you'd just now intended to say.

In recent years I've become more-and-more interested in older periods of Chinese history, especially Shang and Western Zhou-era information, so I thought I would share a few books on here in the event anyone else is interested: A Source Book of Ancient Bronze Inscriptions - ed. and trans. by Constan...

I’ve never touched any of the MMORPG entires in the FF series. I think there is two? But I’ve also generally avoided all MMORPG games due to how involved they seem to become in terms of planning, time online, and time dedicated. It didn’t help that I literally knew two couples who went through divo...