You spend a rainy night at a tea house on West Lake, 850 years ago | 3 Hour Sleep Story, No Mid Roll Ads

Fall asleep inside history. Tonight you arrive in Hangzhou eight and a half centuries ago, capital of the Song dynasty and the largest city in the world, on a canal barge in the warm steady rain of early summer. You cross a city of a million people as the night market glows under dripping awnings, pass out to the shore of West Lake, and are taken in at a lakeside tea house where a charcoal brazier is burning and a bowl of tea is whisked for you the old way, powdered and beaten to a snow white foam in a dark glazed bowl. Supper by the brazier, the host's tales of tea battles judged by the foam, the lantern lit pleasure boats going quiet on the water, the evening bell from Nanping hill, and at last a small room upstairs where the rain on the roof tiles talks you to sleep.You will hear steady warm rain on the roof tiles and the broad leaves under the window, drops falling from the deep tiled eaves, the small lap of lake water against the pilings beneath the balcony, and a far temple bell early in the night.This is a three hour sleep story with an extended narration, made long on purpose because rain nights are the deepest sleepers. The narration fades softly deep in the night, and then the rain continues alone until the third hour. Black screen friendly.Chapters:0:00 Welcome7:01 The Canal In The Rain10:46 The Greatest City In The World17:21 The Lake In The Rain21:53 The Tea House Door26:35 The First Bowl33:23 Supper By The Brazier38:12 The Tea Battles42:40 The Storyteller48:08 The Balcony Over The Lake55:43 The Two Pagodas1:01:08 The Evening Bell1:05:44 The Room Upstairs1:11:00 The Lake Settles1:14:22 DriftingListen with the video on YouTube: add the episode link.New episodes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6pm Eastern. Nights carry you inside an ordinary evening from the past. Tales, every Friday, tell one true story from history, calm enough to sleep to and interesting enough to stay up for.🕯 Kingdoms at Dusk: https://kingdomsatdusk.com📜 All our worlds: https://gildenmyth.com🌙 Norse myth sleep stories, The Sleeping Almanac: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSleepingAlmanac🕊 Goddess sleep meditations, The Tender Hour: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTenderHourChannel🎙 David's interview podcast, Conversations That Count: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThatCount-CTC🎧 Also on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3J6lZ10GvK07qCv3aQxnkR and Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/conversations-that-count-a31f16a6-3131-4c8f-982f-19d52407e8eb/id1890348796Sources: Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion; Wu Zimu, Mengliang lu; Zhou Mi, Wulin jiushi; the Ducheng jisheng of 1235; Emperor Huizong, Treatise on Tea; Cai Xiang, Record of Tea; Lu Yu, The Classic of Tea; the Hangzhou poems and lake records of Su Dongpo; Dieter Kuhn, The Age of Confucian Rule.A real human voice with AI assistance, fully disclosed. No mid roll ads, ever, so nothing wakes you.