I'm not going to take this Tang slander sitting down (also where's the Sui????). In many ways it was China's golden age: best poetry perhaps in world history, incredible multiculturalism with the empire extending all the way to Central Asia, the introduction of Buddhism to China, the legendary An Lushan rebellion and subsequent Uyghur hegemony, the destruction of the Great Families which laid the foundation for the more bureaucratic and ostensibly meritocratic Song, the introduction and spread of tea across China, the beginnings of settling the South and the introduction of modern rice varietals from Vietnam, the codification of the traditional Chinese instrument menagerie by importing instruments and musical styles from Central Asia... I really don't even know why the Tang dynasty panel is about alcohol at all. Alcohol didn't have some sort of outsized role in the Tang compared to other dynasties. Is it because during the Tang the most popular alcoholic drink in China, baijiu, was created?