A Brief History of Tea
Tea’s history is long and illustrious. It begins with a legendary Chinese emperor thousands of years before the Common Era and continues unbroken to present day in your teacup. The history of tea is intertwined with the rise and fall of great nations and the daily rituals of millions since its discovery.
China
Tea was first cultivated in China. Legend has it that Shen Nong, the second emperor of China, discovered tea when some leaves fell into his pot circa 2700 BCE. He found the resulting infusion pleasing and invigorating. Historical records confirm that tea was cultivated in Yunnan province and given as tribute to Chinese emperors as early as of 1066 BCE. This tea was green tea as the process for producing black and oolong teas was not invented until relatively recently. For a long time, tea has been the subject of great scholarship. Lu Yu, Chinese scholar of the seventh century common era, penned its first great work The Classic of Tea (Ch’a Ching). The work details the origins of tea, tea cultivation, tea preparation and the appreciation of tea. It is not a mere industrial cookbook or medical desk reference, but an evocation of the spiritual nature of tea and related ceremony.
Tea spread from the southern regions of China north during the Tang Dynasty. Most of this tea was brick tea and had to be roasted before it could be infused. The following Song Dynasty saw new developments in tea which was increasingly an infusion of whipped powdered tea. Song tea preparation, while not in favor in China today, has been preserved in the Japanese Tea Ceremony codified by Sen-no Rikyu. Mongol conquest of China saw the destruction and rebirth of much of China’s tea culture as the invaders and new rulers of the middle kingdom did not favor tea prepared in the Tang or Song style. It is at this time that the green teas started to be prepared as they are today with loose leaves steeped in near boiling water became the dominant style. In the sixteenth century under the Qing Dynasty, the fermented" or oxidized black and oolong teas start to emerge primarily as product to export to the West.
Tea in the West
Dutch traders were the first Europeans to encounter tea and bring it back to the west. Their trading empire based in Batavia brought them into contact with the Chinese. The tea that they brought home was black tea which the Chinese refused to drink as it was fit only for white devils. Because the Dutch had no experience with tea, they consumed it not as a social beverage, but a medicinal one. The fashion of drinking tea was eventually picked up by various nobility in France, and tea became wildly popular for about half a century. The British, who are so often thought synonymous with tea consumption were some of the last in Europe to catch on to this new eastern product. Over the course of a single century, however, tea became the drink favored and accessible not just by the British elite, but also by the common man.
To quench the growing thirst for tea the British East India Company had to import ever greater quantities of tea. To pay for these shipments the Chinese demanded gold, silver or copper because they had no desire for inferior western manufactured products. This led to an increasing trade deficit between the two nations. The British East India Company through third parties started dealing Indian opium in China. The opium trade while outlawed by the Chinese authorities was hugely profitable and provided the needed silver to obtain tea demanded by British subjects. In 1840, the Chinese authorities destroyed British opium warehouses that had been tacitly allowed to operate in China. The British responded by attacking and taking many major Chinese ports in the ensuing Opium War. The pursuit of tea brought about the forcible opening of China and the undermining of its empire.
The British thirst for tea also caused them to attempt to cultivate tea outside of China. India was seen as one possible place for cultivation where the British might be better able to control the entire tea production process. After several failed attempts to introduce Chinese tea plants to Assam, India, English botanists discovered a wild variety of tea that grew naturally in Assam. Thus, began cultivation of tea outside of China for the express purpose of feeding western demand. Western driven cultivation spread to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Africa and North Carolina.
Tea Today
After water, tea is the most consumed beverage on the planet. Most of this tea is black tea and is prepared in tea bags. India rather than China now produces the most tea. Further, India consumes more tea than anyone else. Even on a per capita basis the British have been surpassed in their tea consumption by both the Irish and the Germans.
Since the American Revolution, more than two hundred years ago the United States has had a rather tepid relationship with tea and has favored coffee and cola. The United States has always been the exception to the rule that English speaking nations drink tea. While it is unlikely to unseat coffee or cola, tea particularly “unfermented” or unoxidized green and white teas are growing in popularity in the US. The growth can be attributed to the growing western recognition of tea’s health benefits.
If you are interested in learning more see the following references.