láo lǐ
Also rendered: fermented wines (Umbrella term, covers both 醪 and 醴) · medicinal wines (Standard in modern TCM English) · rice wine (Too narrow; 醴 need not be made from rice)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
The two grain preparations of the chapter’s title, and the reason the chapter is called what it is. Qibo’s answer about how to make them is entirely about the material — rice, cooked over rice straw, because rice is complete and straw is firm. That answer is the point: these are the mildest medicines in the book, made from food, and the chapter measures the decline of the age by how far they no longer reach. 湯液 is the clear broth; 醪 and 醴 are the wines, turbid and sweet respectively.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| Common English | medicinal wine, or simply wine | Most translations collapse 醪 and 醴 into one word, losing the distinction the chapter's title itself makes. |
| This site | fermented wines | 醪 is turbid and 醴 is thin and sweet; fermented covers both without pretending they are the same preparation, and wines keeps the fact that they are made from grain and drunk — which is what makes the chapter's argument work. These are food before they are drugs, and the chapter's measure of the age is how far food no longer suffices. |
Search the glossary
Reading path
Guided routes through the corpus, each built on a handful of chapters and their key terms.
See all reading paths