The History Of Tea!

After a long day of searching the forest for food, the divine farmer, Shennong, accidentally poisons himself 72 times. Before the poison could kill him, a leaf fell into his mouth. When he chewed on it, it revived him. Thus, we came to know tea. At least, according to an ancient legend, tea doesn’t actually cure poisonings. The story of the legendary Chinese inventor of agriculture Shennong highlights the importance of tea to ancient China.

According to archeological evidence, tea was first grown in China around 6,000 BCE, or about 1,500 BCE prior to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza by the pharaohs. The original Chinese tea plant was the same type that’s grown all over the world today. However, tea was consumed in China in a very different way than it is today. People ate it as a vegetable, or cooked it as grain porridge. It wasn’t until around 1,500 BCE that tea changed from a food to a drink. That’s when people realized that by adding heat and moisture to the leafy green, they could create a rich and varied taste. After hundreds of years of variation in the way tea was prepared, the standard was to heat tea, package it in portable cakes, ground it into powder and mix it with hot water to create a drink called muo cha or matcha.

The popularity of matcha led to the emergence of a unique Chinese tea culture. Tea was a staple of literature and poetry, the drink of choice for emperors, and it was also a popular medium for artists to paint extravagant images in the foam of tea, much like espresso art that can still be found in many coffee shops today. The first tea plant was brought to Japan by a Japanese monk during the Tang Dynasty in the 9th century. From there, the Japanese began to create their own rituals around tea, eventually leading to the Japanese tea ceremony.

The 14th century saw the Chinese emperor of the Ming Dynasty change the standard from pressing tea into cakes to making tea loose leaf. At the time, China still had a virtual monopoly over the world’s tea trees. This made tea one of China’s three most important export goods, alongside porcelain, and silk. As tea drinking spread worldwide, so did China’s power and economic leverage. The spread of tea to Europe began in earnest in the early 16th century when Dutch traders began shipping tea in large quantities to Europe. Many historians attribute the popularity of tea in England to the Portuguese noblewoman, Catherine, who married Charles II, King of England in 1661.

At this time, the British were in the process of expanding their colonial empire and becoming the world's new dominant power. As the British empire expanded, so did interest in tea. By the year 1700, tea was selling for ten times more in Europe than coffee, and the plant itself was still only cultivated in China. The tea trade became so profitable that the world’s fastest sailboat was born. The clipper ship was the result of fierce competition between western trading companies. They all wanted to be the first to bring their teas back to Europe in order to maximize profits.

Initially, the British paid for all of this Chinese tea in silver. When this proved to be too costly, they offered to exchange the tea for a different substance known as opium. This led to a public health crisis in China as people began to abuse the drug. In 1839, an official of China ordered his troops to destroy large British consignments of opium as an act of defiance against Britain’s power in China. This marked the start of the first Opium War.

The fighting continued along the coast of China until 1842, when the Qing Dynasty, having lost Hong Kong, surrendered the port to the British and agreed to resume trade on terms that were unfavorable to the British. The war damaged China’s international reputation for more than a century. The British East India Company also wanted to cultivate tea of their own and gain greater control over the market. In a highly classified operation, botanist Robert fortune stole tea from China.

He disguised himself and went on a dangerous trek through China’s mountain tea regions, smuggling tea trees and skilled workers to Darjeeling in India. From there the plant spread even further, fueling tea’s meteoric rise as a daily commodity. Today, tea is the world’s second most popular drink after water. From the sweet Turkish Rize tea to the salty Tibetan butter tea there are nearly as many ways to make tea as there are cultures around the world.