The Origins of Tea

The history of tea spans thousands of years and crosses the globe. This article offers a concise history of tea, including both the mythological origins of tea and the modern tea trade.

A Mythological History of Tea

In the 5th century, CE, a Brahman priest named Bodhidharma journeyed up the Silk Road from India to China. He was an intense and passionate man, sometimes nicknamed "The Blue-eyed Barbarian," and he had new ideas to share with the people of China. Having become both renowned and infamous for his new ideas, Bodhidharma ventured further north into China, to the Wei Kingdom. There, he found a cave where sat quietly for nine years, gazing at the wall in meditation. Seven years passed, and Bodhidharma fell asleep. When he awoke, he was angry at his lack of discipline that he cut off both his eyelids. Bodhidharma tossed the eyelids to the ground, and when they landed, tea trees sprouted from the ground.

A less fantastic legend about the origin of tea dates the discovery (though not the creation) of tea to the much more ancient date of 2737 BCE. Shen Nung, the Chinese emperor and famous herbalist, sat beneath a tree, boiling his drinking water to sterilize it. Wind blew, shaking leaves free from the tree above him, and the leaves landed in the boiling water. The tealeaves began to steep, turning the water dark. Shen Nung was always curious about the properties of plants, so rather than throw the water away, he decided to try a drink. He enjoyed the taste and the stimulating effects so much that he cut branches from the tea tree and distributed them among the Chinese people, instructing them to try this new concoction.

In yet another legend about the history of tea, it is said that Shen Nung (who is also considered an ancient Chinese God of Agriculture) set out to taste all of the herbs in the world, so that he might know the properties of all of them. In one day of tasting, he consumed 72 poisons. But then Shen Nung tasted the tea tree, and the tealeaves proved to be the perfect antidote, neutralizing all of the poisons he had tasted.

A Factual History of Tea

The tea plant, Camellia Sinensis is indigenous to China and India, and wild tea plants can grow almost as high as 100 feet., though in modern cultivation, tea is kept to a height of no more than 3 or 4 feet. It is likely that the Chinese have been drinking tea for thousands of years, but historically it has been confirmed that tea-drinking was widespread in China by the fifth and sixth centuries, CE. Speculation says that before the fifth century, tea was used as a medicine more often than as an everyday drink.

The next country to be blessed by the knowledge of tea was Japan, where it was used primarily by the Zen Buddhists. Tea became so important in Japan that elaborate tea ceremonies were developed, and in order to be qualified to make a cup of tea, one had to submit to years of training.

It was as late as the 16th century when tea was finally introduced to Europe. Portuguese sailors first brought the leaves home from their Chinese excursions. Though the Portuguese had originally sailed to China as Jesuit missionaries, they were quick to realize the market potential for this product in Europe. The Dutch, also prominent sailors, transported tea from Portugal to other European countries. Thus began the world tea trade.

Tea was considered a "drink of fashion" in England and the Netherlands during the mid-17th century, but it really began to gain popularity around the turn of the 18th century, when tea drinking expanded to the middle classes. Interestingly, it was about this time that it became common for tea drinkers to use sugar in tea.

England gained a monopoly on the tea trade in the late 17th century. The John Company was started in 1600, and was originally designed to trade textiles and spices. But as tea became more popular in England, the John Company focused on the tea trade, quickly usurping Portugal as the leader of this trade in Europe. In the late 17th century, the John Company merged with the East India Company and, under the new charter, became an extremely powerful company. This merger proved to be one of the most important events in the history of tea.

The monopoly created by the East India Company caused tea to be a very expensive drink, and a great deal of smuggling and black market trade resulted. Americans revolted against the highly taxed English tea, and the Boston Tea Party, in which Americans dumped hundreds of pounds of English tea into a harbor, was the act that began the American Revolution. America began to trade directly with China after the Revolution.

The price of tea decreased in the early 19th century. After a brief interruption of the Chinese tea trade, during which plantations were begun in other countries, the British resumed trade with the Chinese, using Clipper ships that moved much faster than other ships. Because the Clipper ships were able to increase the supply of tea to England, prices dropped. Tea became affordable.

During the 20th century, both tea consumption and tea cultivation expanded. One reason for the increased consumption may be attributed to Thomas Sullivan, the American merchant who invented the tea bag. The tea in tea bags is full of fannings (small bits of broken tealeaves), and is inferior to loose teas in almost every way. But nevertheless, the convenience of tea bags greatly contributed to the popularity of tea in the modern world. Loose leaf and high quality teas experienced a resurgence near the end of the 20th century, however, as consumers became unsatisfied with the poor quality available from mass producers.

Today, tea is a household word. It is available in numerous different blends and grades all over the world. Tea is now cultivated in numerous different countries, as diverse as Turkey, Argentina and Japan, but the countries with the largest tea production are still those that Camellia Sinensis can call its homeland: India and China.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharma

http://www.planet-tea.com/teas_origin.html

http://chinese-tea.net/origin-chinese-tea.htm

http://www.hollandbymail.com/tea/tea_history.html

http://www.stashtea.com/facts.htm

http://www.wtea.com/about-tea_history.aspx

http://coffeetea.about.com/od/teabrewing/a/looseorbag.htm

http://www.panix.com/~kendra/tea/tea_to_england.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea