Essay about The Wide World of Tea

“This was the routine of the old China trade. These were the commodities traditionally brought to China and traditionally carried away. And at the heart of the trade was tea. It came from no other place. India did not then produce any, nor Ceylon, Java, or Formosa; Japan was inaccessible; the world perforce drank China teas. Above all, the English drank them” (17).

how to process and grow tea or it would be useless to get the thousands of

- First in its market to brew its tea from tea leaves as opposed to artificial powders.

Tea became a mainstream drink in Asia around 100 BCE. It then became a mainstream drink in Europe around 1610 CE.

Saberi, H. (2010). Tea Comes to the West. In Tea:A Global History. [Adobe Digital Editions Version]. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/

Tea: Tea began as a luxury drink, and then trickled down to become the beverage of the working man. The story of tea is the story of imperialism, industrialization, and world domination. According to Chinese tradition, the first cup of tea was brewed by the emperor Shen Nung. Before tea was a beverage, it was used for medicinal purposes and foodstuff. Tea became a daily drink in China around the third century A.D. As the Industrial Revolution of 18th and 19th centuries gained steam, tea provided some of the fuel. Factory workers stayed alert during long, monotonous shifts thanks to welcome tea breaks. The beverage also had unintended health benefits for rapidly growing urban areas. Chewing leaves and rubbing them on wounds were ways that tea was used for medicinal purposes.

The origins of tea are rooted in China (Food Timeline). According to legend, the beneficial properties of tea were first discovered by the Emperor Shen Nung in the year 2737 B.C. He drank only boiled water for hygienic purposes, and one day while he drank a breeze rustled the branches of a tree and a few leaves fell into his cup. Creating the first cup of tea. It is challenging to know whether or not the emperor was real or just a part of the spiritual and cultural development of ancient China. China was not unified as an empire until the third century, so it is unlikely emperors existed back then. One thing that is known is that tea was popular in China thousands of years ago. The first written reference of tea is in the third century B.C. A famous surgeon recommended the beverage to patients to increase concentration and alertness. Tea was first written as “tu” in ancient texts. This caused a good deal of confusion because the same Chinese character was used for both tea and Chinese sow thistles. Between 206 B.C. and A.D. 220 a Han Dynasty emperor ruled that when referring to tea, the characters should be pronounced as “cha”. From here on, tracing tea’s history became easier because tea acquired its own individual character (Food Timeline).

Tea became popular for British royalty because of Catherine of Braganza. Catherine was a devout tea drinker and married Charles II. With that marriage came a dowry that included a chest of tea. This was popular with upper class England because

It also served as a food stuff, until it became a drink. According to Monks ( Buddhist) tea help with meditation, so it play an important part in Buddhism. Tea was used socially, people in both China and Japan, also in England would gather together for tea parties. While at these tea parties, people would have enjoy a cup of tea which helped the mind to stimulate intellectual conversations and debates. People drank a lot of tea because it help prevent waterborne disease. It served as a the main trade for China and Japan.

Tea, known to Asia as a luxury used for medicinal purposes, became a way of life for Europeans. It served as a huge asset towards the growth of Europe and Britain’s status as a world power.

Tea was declared the National Drink of England in 1784. The eighteenth century saw the transformation of tea as an everyday necessity for the poor and working class of the British society. To meet the domestic demand at home, the British East India Company imported great volumes of tea from China. The tea import increased from an estimated 64 tons in 1711 to 6800 tons in 1791. Even heavy import tax could not deter an increasingly expanding domestic market for the Chinese tea. As tea drinking had become obsession with the British society, consumption of tea replaced home-brewed beer, gin, milk and traditional infusions of indigenous plants. This great transformation in the consumption pattern of British society led to the commodification of

An “ancient legend in China, is that tea was discovered accidentally by the Emperor Shen Nong in 2737 B.C.E.” According to the website, www.mightyleaf.com “The emperor was boiling water under a tree and leaves fell into the pot,” and thus the legend of how drinking tea started. According to historical documents, China is the first culture to drink tea or to utilize it in religious or cultural ceremonies. The practice of sharing tea began among family members, neighbors, and friends as a social interaction. In an early Chinese dynasty, the Emperor Song Huizong wrote about the “problems that can degrade the flavor, such as using an inferior product or improperly processed leaf.” (Hinsch 77) Even poems penned in China discussed the growing and drinking of tea.

There are various legends about how tea was discovered, but the most famous is the story of Shen Nung, the ancient Emperor of China, who, in 2737 BC, was boiling his drinking water when leaves from a nearby tea bush tree blew into the cauldron. After drinking the brew, the emperor was pleasantly surprised by its flavor and restorative properties. Thus, tea was born. It quickly became the favorite beverage in China and spread to Europe and the Americas].

According to an interview from Daniel Lui, a tea expert who has been studying the art of traditional Chinese tea for decades and set up his business in Vancouver’s Chinatown to teach others the art of tea, says “Virtually all teas are from the Camellia sinensis plant. What determines the different varieties of black, green, white, oolong, and pu-erh are location, harvesting time, method of harvesting and processing”(Silver, 2011). These five kinds of tea have different colors and flavors because of their difference in location and harvesting method. The first kind is black tea, which is also called red tea in China, is a post-fermented tea that produces dark tea water when steeped. This tea has various pure qualities, which blends easily with other flavors to create a rich and exquisite taste. As the second kind, green tea is light and refreshing. It contains the largest amount of caffeine and vitamins and has a subtle flavor and light color when steeped. The third one is white tea, which is light and delicately smooth. It has the least processed procedure that only undergoes steaming and drying, and leaving to its natural state. The forth one is Oolong tea. Oolong Tea has flowery sweet aroma combine with a pleasantly sweet after taste; it never loses its appeal no matter how often people drink it. And the last one is pu-erh tea, which is the strongest and most bold flavor tea. Unlike other teas, pu-erh 's quality and taste

In the article “Types of Teas and Their Health Benefits” from WebMD” it is noted that although there are many brews of tea, purist really only deem green tea. Black tea, white tea, and oolong tea as authentic.