The first whiff in China: It could be part legend, part history or true fact, but tea is believed to have been discovered in the Yunnan Province of ancient China in the year 2737 BC at the time of the philosophical emperor, Shen Nung.
On one of his outdoor excursions, while the emperor was resting under a tree, his servant was terrified to find that sonic dried leaves had blown into the cup of water that he had just boiled. However, to his amazement, the master, rather than being enraged, was examining, with interest, the hot water which had taken on a light golden colour, emitting a delicate aroma.
The art of preparing and serving tea, with its underlying philosophies, remains intrinsic to Chinese culture. The hostess in a Chinese tea ceremony conveys these values through delicate hand movements and facial expressions.
She may employ the Gongfu Cha method: A clay teapot and bowls are rinsed and placed on a special tray that provides for drainage of water spillage during the course of the tea preparation. One-third of the pot is filled with tea leaves and hot water poured over them to the point of overflow.
The pot is then drained, boiling water is poured once again over the residue of wet leaves and the lid of the teapot is closed for 30 seconds. The aroma of the tea is further sealed by pouring more hot water over the closed pot. It is now ready to be dispensed into the cups.
Tea Fervour Grips Japan
Sometime around the 12th century, on a quest to learn Zen Buddhism, the Buddhist priest Yeisei made a trip to Tsung China where he realised that after drinking tea, he could meditate with more concentration. He therefore returned to Japan with tea seeds, which he planted on the grounds of his temple near Kyoto.
The Imperial household quickly took to the beverage and during the Muromachi period, (AD 1336-1573) tea became one of the most delicate art forms, and Cha-no-yu or the Tea Ceremony was adopted, which also borrowed from Tsung norms.
Despite Japan’s leap to technology, Sen no Rikyu’s traditions of Cha-no-yu are still alive, and remain a cultural hallmark of the country.
Take, for instance, Mrs Midori Uragami, a tea master of the Omotesenke School. She is a frail and gracious lady in her mid-eighties, who demonstrates the ceremony in her Tokyo home to her following of young students.
Her four-and-half sized tatami tea room or chashitsu (in Japan, traditional room sizes go by the sections of a tatami or mat) is specifically measured. It has a tokonoma, a recessed alcove, with a beautifully calligraphic scroll and a chabana, a simple flower arrangement. Together, they depict a theme that usually represents a season.
Guests must drink their tea in a particular manner. They turn their cup to take two-and-a-half sips, admire the cup, and wipe it clean to pass on to the next guest before it finally goes back to the host.
The English Cup of Tea
The beverage, however, made its appearance in England relatively late, during the mid-17th century, making it the last of the three great sea-faring nations to break into the Chinese and East Indian trade routes.
By this time coffee was already an accepted drink and in 1657 Thomas Garraway, a coffee merchant, ventured to sell both liquid and dry tea in his coffee house, extolling its virtues and health benefits. By 1700 there were several coffee houses selling tea. One such beverage house was owned by Edward Lloyd who started his enterprise in London as a beverage house owner where ship merchants and marine insurers gathered over tea.
This eventually led to the origin of Lloyd’s, a reckoned name in global insurance.
After the catastrophic Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of London, tea gardens like Vauxhall and Ranelagh opened in the suburbs of the city on the same lines as the Dutch tavern gardens.
Women could now enter a mixed public gathering for the first time. Some historians mention that it was at such a Tea Garden that Lord Nelson, the great British Admiral who defeated Napoleon at sea, used to meet his lover, the beautiful Emma, Lady Hamilton.
These tea gardens also gave rise to the social norm of tipping. The word “teetotal” could have an interesting derivative from the course of tea history.
The English tradition of afternoon tea was introduced sometime during the late eighteenth century by Anna, Duchess of Bedford. One summer day she experienced a “sinking feeling” and inspired by the European style of tea service, invited friends to join her for an additional nibble at five o’clock in her rooms at Belvoir Castle.
Along with tea she served small cakes, sandwiches, (just around this time, the Earl of Sandwich had the idea of putting a filling between two slices of bread that would create one of the world’s most popular snacks), and assorted sweets. Other social hostesses took the cue, extending invitations for afternoon tea.
On the other hand, for the labourers and peasants, afternoon tea became high tea, a sort of main meal of the day, being a hybrid between lunch and dinner.
Tea Shapes American History
The Dutch, under Peter Stuyvesant, the last Director-General of the Settlement of New Amsterdam (New York City) initially brought tea across the Atlantic in 1650.
By 1710, the wealthy colonists in Philadelphia and Boston began to consider the drink as a sign of sophistication.
Tea became the biggest trade commodity between America and England. Meanwhile the Crown began to feel the financial crunch of the war which they had fought to free the colony from French influence and stabilise trade. In a bid to generate funds, the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 placed a heavy tax on tea. Strong protests against this measure led to a boycott of tea and in the bargain, stoked the fires of the breakaway from the control of the mother country.
The climax came on December 16, 1773, when patriots from Saint Andrew’s Masonic Lodge, dressed as Indians (as a throwback to the French-Indian war) boarded the ships in Boston, and dumped 340 chests of tea into the harbour. Thus, the Boston Tea Party, as it came to be known, became the springboard for the American War of Independence.
Culturally, the credit of introducing the concept of iced tea to the world goes to the Americans. However, iced tea in its present form was really popularised by Richard Blechynden at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair that took place on a blistering summer day.
As Commissioner for Tea in India and in-charge of the East India Pavilion, seeing that buyers were feeling too hot to try out his free samples of the beverage, he dumped a whole lot of ice into the tea and so created one of the world’s most marketable drinks-iced tea.
Tea Drinking in Germany
OstFriesland in the lower Saxony district of Germany has the world’s most impressive number of tea drinkers. Typically, Frieslanders prepare a strong black tea that is a blend of several kinds of tea sourced from different countries. The tea is brewed in a fine porcelain teapot that is embellished with the characteristic Friesian rose.
It is then served in a manner that is rather unique: first a rock candy sugar, called kluntjes, is placed at the bottom of the cup, and this is used to sweeten multiple cups. The tea is topped with heavy cream and served without a spoon, as it is meant to be drunk unstirred, to be savoured in stages.
