Tea: Brief History of Tea

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Table of Contents Teas Noble Birth Traditional Tea CultureModern Tea

Teas Enticement The English Tea Monopoly Tea Plantations In India Tea in North America American Tea Trade Tea BagInformation

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Teas Noble Birth

T eas birth story is infused with a blend of myth and fact and colored byancient concepts of spirituality, and philosophy. According to ancient leg-end in China, the story of tea began in 2737 B.C. when the Chinese Emper-or Shen Nong, a skilled ruler and scientist, accidentally discovered the tea. While

boiling water in the garden, a leaf from an overhanging wild tea tree drifted intohis pot. The Emperor enjoyed drinking the infused water with its unusual anddelicious avor. He felt invigorated and refreshed. As a scientist, this serendipi-tous event compelled him to further research the plant whereby he found tea tohave medicinal properties. And so, the rst cup of tea, generated by the mightyleaf, was created by accident.

Emperor Shen Nong

Bodhi-Dharma

H owever, Indian history attri-butes the discovery of tea toPrince Bodhi-Dharma, an Indiansaint who founded the JapaneseZen school of Buddhism. In 520 A.D.,he left India to preach Buddhism inChina. To prove some Zen principles,he vowed to meditate for nine years. Towards the end of his meditationefforts he fell asleep. Upon awakinghe was so distraught that he cut offhis eyelids. A tea plant sprung upfrom where his bloody eyelids hit theground to sanctify his sacrice.


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Shennong, also known as the Emperor of the Five Grains, was a legendary ruler ofChina and culture hero. Shennong is considered to have been one of the Three Sov-ereigns (also known as Three Emperors) who lived some 5,000 years ago. Shen-nong has been thought to have taught the ancient Chinese not only their practices ofagriculture, but also the use of herbal drugs. Shennong is among the group of variouslynamed heroic persons and deities who have been traditionally given credit for variousinventions: these include the hoe, plow, axe, wells, agricultural irrigation, preserving

stored seeds by using boiled horse urine, the weekly farmers market, the Chinese cal-endar (especially the division into the 24 jieqi or solar terms), and to have refined thetherapeutic understanding of taking pulse measurements, acupuncture, and moxibus-tion, and to have instituted the harvest thanksgiving ceremony (Zhaji Sacrificial Rite,later known as the Laji Rite). Pretty much the Macgyver of ancient Chinese agriculture.


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Traditional Tea Culture

Whatever the legend, tracing teas original roots proves difficult. It isprobable that the tea plant originated in the region of southwestChina, Tibet and Northern India. Chinese traders may have traveledthroughout these regions often and encountered people chewing tea leaves.

From these journeys, the Chinese learned teas use.Early on, people primarily used tea for medicinal purposes. Not until the Tangdynasty (618-907 AD), often referred to as the classic age of tea, did consump-tion become widespread and characterized as Chinas national drink. An im-position of a government imposed tea tax further evidences the beveragesgrowing popularity. During that time, compressed bricks of tea leaves wererst softened by re and then grated into boiling water.

A Buddhist monk, Lu Yu (733-804) composed the Cha Ching or Classic of Teatreatise. He described types of tea, uses and preparation and the benets ofdrinking it. More importantly, he imbued the writings with a spiritual aestheticthat reected Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian religious thought of the time. Thetea ceremony served as a metaphor for expressing the harmony and simplicitythat not only ordered but also streamed throughout the entire universe.

Later, in the Sung dynasty (960-1280 AD.), known as the romantic age of tea,poetry and artistic references to tea abounded. A precursor to the Japanesetea ceremony or Cha No Yu to come, the most popular method of preparationinvolved grinding delicate tea leaves into a green powder in a stone mill andwhipping it into hot water with bamboo whisks.

During this period, Chinese culture signicantly inuenced and impacted art,politics and religion in the Far East. Consequently, around the early 9th century,a Japanese Buddhist monk, Saicho, is credited with introducing tea to Japan.While studying in China, Saicho became exposed to tea and brought back

China & Japan


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seeds to start growing at his monastery. Other monks over time followed suit,and soon small tea plantations sprouted up at secluded monasteries. Howev-er, due to the isolation, teas popularity did not blossom until the thirteenthcentury.

At this time, like in China people only drank tea in powdered form. Inspired byBuddhist spiritual philosophy, this marks the origin of the Japanese Tea Cere-mony or Chanoyu.


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Modern Tea

Not until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) was tea prepared by steepingleaves in water, like it is today. Instead of compressing tea leaves intobricks, the leaves were dried, rolled and then heated in iron woks.Brewing simply involved steeping leaves in hot water. The Chinese

government further established a hold on tea trade by opening a Bureau of Teaand Horses. They introduced laws regulating interactions on the frontier, wherepeople traded tea for horses. From 1644 to 1911, the Qing dynasty ruled Chinaand eventually abolished duties on tea, a testament to how essential tea hadbecome to everyday life and the economy.

In the 17th century, a Chinese monk traveling in Japan brought the new rolledform of tea that had replaced powdered tea in China. A tea merchant in Uji,Kyoto, Nagatani Soen invented a new Japanese method of steaming, dryingand rolling green tea during the 18th century. This tea and style of processingbecame known as Sencha. The custom of drinking Sencha tea daily lives ontoday.

Steeping Customs Emerge


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Teas Enticement

Although Europeans rst started importing tea in the 17th century, it ap-peared earlier in the West. Traders, missionaries and explorers travelingback and forth between Europe and the Orient became exposed to thebudding tea traditions in China and Japan. Around the 9th century, referencesin Arab trade documents refer to the process of boiling bitter tea leaves. LaterMarco Polo (1254-1324) alludes to tea in his travel writings about the East.

Tea nally arrived in the West during the 16th century - a Portuguese mission-ary is attributed with bringing tea to Europe while caravanning back and forthbetween Portugal and China.

Tea was not seriously traded though until Dutch merchants entered the pic-ture. In 1610, the rst shipments of Japanese and Chinese tea arrived in Europevia ships charted by the Dutch East India Company. Tea also owed into Russiaearly on via camel trains that came from China on part of the famous Silk Road. The popularity of tea spread to cities including Amsterdam, Paris and London,however, its high price limited consumption to Europeans royal classes andaristocrats. Tea drinking, a novelty at the time, allowed the wealthy to partakein a bit of Eastern adventure during the age of exploration and discovery.

The West


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The English

The English did not gravitated towards tea immediately. Coffee re-mained the preferred drink in coffee houses frequented mainly bymen. The tea fad caught on slowly with women who perceived it as agenteel drink. In 1657, the first shop to sell tea in England opened, run by Thomas Garraway. The shop sold tea imported by the Dutch. Teas popu-larity began to spread and consumption rose in Londons cafes and coffeehouses.

The drink gained fur ther legitimacy when Charles II married Catherine ofBraganza, a Portuguese royal, who adored tea and introduced the conceptof tea time to the court. Soon thereafter, the British East India Trade Com-pany (also known as the John Company), who was competing with theDutch for tea trade, established their first foothold in the East by securinga tea factory in Macao.

A Birth of a Love Affair


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Catherine arrived in Portsmouth on 13 May 1662. It had been a long and stormy crossing,

and as soon as she arrived she asked for a cup of tea. So rare was it at this time thatthere was none available; the princess was offered a glass of ale instead. Not surpris-

ingly, this did not make her fee l any better, and for a time she was forced by illness to retireto her bedchamber.


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A Tea Monopoly

By the early 1700s, the British East India Company established via itselfas the dominant trading power and would go on to monopolize the teatrade with China. Trading stations sprung up in India, including hubs inBombay, Bengal and Madras. The Company, acting as an imperial arm of En-gland would exercise signicant political power in helping to create a wealthyand powerful British Empire. This included not only trading but also the rightto annex land, direct troops and dictate British laws.

The British would exploit the tea trade for prot and political power over thenext century. However, geo-political change involving new American coloniesabroad and the French and Indian Wars in 1763 began to threaten the BritishEast India Companys privileged position. In addition, the Company wouldstruggle burdened by nancial mismanagement, corruption and growing teasmuggling operations.

British East India Company


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Tea Plantations in India

Despite the Companys dominance, interestingly enough, up until themid 1800s, China remained the sole source of tea for Western de-mand. Looking to discover the tea growing secrets and to end their

reliance on Chinese tea, the British Tea Committee sent Rober t Fortune,an English botanist, on an undercover mission to China. Disguised as aChinese merchant he traveled around the country learning about farmingand processing techniques. Most importantly, he sent back tea samplesand brought back Chinese tea experts who played an important role inenabling British tea planting and experimentation in India.

In around 1823, a British Army Major Robert Bruce stumbled upon indig-enous tea bushes growing in the Northeast region of Assam, India. Withthis discovery, the British East India Company seized the opportunity toexperiment with growing tea in not only Assam but in Darjeeling, a regionin Northeastern India at the foot of the Himalayas. An East India Companyemployee, Dr. Campbell, first planted Darjeeling tea seeds in his garden atBeechwood, Darjeeling. The planting proved so successful that in 1847 theBritish government began developing tea estates in the area.

This marked the beginning of a new tea industry in India and an end to

reliance on Chinese grown tea. With tea plantations springing up all overparts of India and the advent of the industrial revolution, the tea trade inIndia would flourish.

The Birth of Indian Tea


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Tea in North America

Tea initially came to America in the mid 1600s via the Dutch whostarted a settlement in New Amsterdam, which after acquiring thecolony, the English renamed it New York. A favorite of colonial wom-

en and wealthy colonists, a heavily taxed tea trade flourished between thecolony and England. To bolster up the Companys failing financial posi-tion, it had convinced the English Parliament to enact the Tea Act, whichallowed them to ship tea duty-free directly to the colonists and profit byexcluding the colonial merchants. The general notion of taxation withoutrepresentation brewed great dissent among the colonists.

Political tensions came to a climax with the Boston Tea Party, as colo-nists protested Englands high taxes by dressing as Native Americans anddumping tea into the water off East India Companys trading boats. Thisact provided an impetus for the American colonies fight for independencein 1776. Although the American Revolution set back the Company, it managed tosurvive due to its immense size. But, when Richard Twining and thousandsof independent tea merchants organized a campaign to reveal the Compa-nys corrupt practices and pressured the English government to end their

monopoly, it would eventually crumble.

Tea Gone Overboard


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American Tea Trade

American clipper ships began importing tea directly from China toAmerica starting in the 1850s. In the wake of the Companys downfalland the repeal of the Navigation Acts, which dictated that all tea mustbe shipped directly from England to colonist ports, clipper ships quick-ly became the preferred method for transporting tea. These gracefuland sleek vessels with three masts easily outdated trading ships. Builtfor speed, the British and Americans raced clippers back and forth be-tween China and England bringing the best teas for auction.

Clipper Ships


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The Tea Bag

During the 19th century, tea drinking played an important role in sociallife, from tea parties to afternoon tea in both England and America.New tea traditions began to develop in America as the beverages pop-ularity grew.

Iced Tea originated in 1904 at the Worlds Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. Atea merchant and plantation owner from abroad had intended to pro-vide visitors with free hot tea samples. However, due to the unusuallyhot weather, it was not a big hit. To promote sales, he asked a nearbyice cream vendor for some ice. The American iced tea tradition was

born when he dumped the ice into the hot brewed tea. Today, ice teasales make up at least 80% of the entire U.S. tea market. The original tea bags were handmade, hand stitched muslin or silkbags. Patents for tea bags exist as early as 1903. However, Thomas Sul-livan, a tea merchant from New York is often credited with creating thefirst commercial tea bag concept.

An American Invention


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This Issue of Tea

This issue was to gauge my interest in Tea, which it has, so I am goingto continue the Tea series. This edition was the History of Tea, with allof the writing taken from MightTea.coms History of Tea section.All the writing credit should go to the company Mighty Leaf Tea Canada.

Im unsure of how to approach the next issue, perhaps I will do my ownresearch and write for myself. Which isnt a bad way to learn about myfavorite beverage - of course tea!

History of Tea


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Next Issue of Tea

The next edition will go through the different types of teas. Before thisproject I had zero understanding of tea. For instance, I would leavemy tea bag within my tea pot until I was finished with the tea. I alsothought that Black Tea and Green Tea were two different species of teaplants. But, Im learning.

I will go through the popular types of teas, explain what makes themunique. I will probably provide general examples of the flavor, color, andaroma of the type. I think it is a great way to learn about teas and findingtypes that you feel would be exciting to try - for me its matcha.

Follow the Tea Series At:Issuu.com/shawnganz

Twitter: @shawnganz

Types of Tea


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Tea: Brief History of Tea

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