The History of Tea

Tea-leaves and the birth of nations

The tea plant is native to China and it has been known there for around 5,000 years but it took a windy day and a hygiene conscious Emperor to bring the drink into existence. Legend tells us that tea as a drink was accidentally discovered in 2737 B.C. by a Chinese Emperor called Shen Nong. This was said to have occurred when some tea leaves accidentally fell into a pot of boiling water. It is known that Shen Nong was interested in science and hygiene and that it was he who determined that drinking water should be boiled as a safety precaution. When the Emperor tried the boiled water with the tea leaves infused in it, he realized that he had discovered a refreshing new drink.

A Buddhist monk called Lu Yu wrote the first book on tea, and it was he who defined the different types of tea cultivation and preparation. In addition to its more prosaic form as a drink, Chinese tea preparation took on a mystical form. It was this strange practice that eventually transferred itself to Japan and developed into the famous Japanese tea ceremony.

Tea-leaf reading certainly originated in China and it spread throughout neighboring countries as each in turn took up the cultivation of tea.

The first traders to bring tea to Europe were the Portuguese. They carried cargoes of tea to Lisbon and from there the tea-drinking habit spread to France, Holland and the Baltic countries. The Dutch became confirmed tea-drinkers and it was the export of tea that helped to found Holland as a major trading country. Only when England settled down after the Civil War and was able to concentrate once again on overseas trade did tea start to arrive in the British Isles, this being around 1653. The price was kept artificially high which meant that only the wealthy and privileged classes could afford to buy tea, but by 1708 tea began to come into the country in sufficient quantities and at a price that made it accessible to ordinary people.

The Chinese wisely tried to keep the secrets of tea growing to themselves in order to maintain their monopoly on the trade. However, a Scottish botanist called Robert Fortune who actually spoke Chinese was able to sneak into China and with the help of a Chinese friend, he managed to take some seeds away with him. The tea seeds reached India where many crops were grown, lost, improved upon, lost and grown again until the techniques became properly understood. The increasing size of the crops from the subcontinent brought the prices down and the incredibly fast clipper ships brought cargoes to Britain at great speed. The price came tumbling down and the populations of Britain and Ireland as a whole took to tea drinking in a major way.

Until the late 18th century, the two main meals were a heavy breakfast accompanied by ale and a huge dinner - with nothing else between. The Duchess of Bedford (1788 - 1861) introduced the idea of afternoon tea, along with a friendly gossip and a walk in the fields. Afternoon tea, with bread and butter, sandwiches and cakes quickly became popular, especially with upper class ladies. The upper classes retained the practice of having a tea with snacks and cakes thereafter, while the working classes incorporated tea drinking with their evening meal. There are still people all over Britain who refer to an evening main meal as their tea. The British soldiers who were stationed in India throughout the 19th century and the early 20th century chose tea as a pleasant alternative to beer. Oddly enough, history records that those British Indian soldiers who avoided beer altogether and who only drank tea suffered far more from heat exhaustion than those who drank at least some beer during the course of each day. This may have something to do with the salts and natural chemicals that are found in beer.

Russia and the countries that surround it are great tea-drinking nations and they like their tea in a glass with a special holder either “straight” or more usually, with lemon and sugar. Russian tea may be made in a teapot but it is often brewed in a decorated samovar. In 1618 the Chinese embassy in Moscow presented Czar Alexis with several crates of tea, and shortly after this a treaty was formed that allowed trading caravans to cross the border between Russia and China. The length of the journey and the high cost of transporting tea by pack animal meant that at first only the wealthy could afford to drink it. Gradually the price came down, especially after the trans-Siberian railway was opened in 1900 and tea became the national drink of Russia - along with vodka.

Immigrants to North America came from both tea and coffee drinking heritages. The short-sighted English government of George III imposed ridiculous taxes on tea and other products and his government interfered in the lives of the colonists in other highly irritating ways. Eventually the Americans cried, “no taxation without representation,” and began to fight for independence. On the 16th of December 1773, a group of Americans dressed as Red Indians clambered onto an English ship called the Beaver and threw its cargo of tea into Boston harbor. Although Americans continued to import tea from Holland and also from a few rogue English traders, these difficulties encouraged Americans to choose coffee over tea as their national drink. An American invented iced tea in 1904. Modern Americans are taking up tea drinking in larger amounts now, because they perceive it as a healthy alternative to coffee.

Most of the tea that is imported into western countries such as Britain and the USA nowadays comes from Kenya, with some still coming from the traditional sources of India and Sri-Lanka. In recent times Indonesia has started to export lea, while some is grown in Malaya and even in the north of Australia where the soil and climate suits the crop. Despite the fact that Robert Fortune's success at smuggling tea seeds out of China broke the Chinese monopoly of tea cultivation, China is still a major tea growing country. China is also major exporter of plain and flavored Chinese styles of tea, which differ from the Indian tea flavors that are so beloved of British and Irish tea drinkers.