HISTORY OF TEA

While wandering through the bush in search of nutritious grains and herbs, the worn-out divine farmer Shennong Teng accidently poisoned himself 72 times. But before the poisons could kill him, he unintentionally swallowed a leaf. He chewed on it and felt better, then we discovered tea. That is, at least, what one old legend claims. Although tea is not a true remedy for poisonings, the story of the legendary Chinese farmer Shennong highlights the importance of tea in prehistoric China.

According to archeological discoveries, the earliest tea plantations may have existed there as long as 6,000 years ago, or 1,500 years before the Great Pyramids of Giza were built. Despite the fact that the original Chinese tea plant is the same one used to create tea today.Only 1,500 years ago did people begin to drink tea instead of eating it, realizing that the leafy green could take on a variety of flavors when heated and moistened. After hundreds of years of experimentation with different preparation techniques, muocha, or matcha, as it is more often known, is made by heating tea, putting it in transportable cakes, powdering it, and mixing it with hot water. Due to the success of matcha, a unique Chinese tea culture developed. Emperors loved tea; it was the subject of novels and poetry; and artists used tea as a medium. Similar to the espresso art you might see in coffee shops nowadays, they would create elaborate pictures in the tea's foam.

The first tea plant was introduced to Japan by a Japanese monk in the ninth century under the Tang Dynasty. The Japanese tea ceremony was eventually established as a result of the development of the country's own distinctive tea customs. The Chinese emperor also changed the norm from tea that was compressed into cakes to loose leaf tea in the 14th century under the Ming Dynasty. Tea was one of China's three primary exports at the time, along with porcelain and silk, due to its virtual monopoly on the world's tea trees. As the consumption of tea became more widespread, this gave China a significant amount of power and economic clout. When Dutch traders carried considerable amounts of tea to Europe in the early 1600s, that spread really got off.

Many believe that when Portuguese noblewoman Queen Catherine of Braganza married King Charles II in 1661, she popularized tea among the English aristocracy. At the time, Great Britain was in the process of increasing its colonial sway and emerging as the new global superpower. As Great Britain expanded, so did global interest in tea. Tea was still only grown in China in 1700, and prices in Europe were ten times higher than those for coffee. The world's fastest sailboat, the clipper ship, was created as a result of fierce competition between Western commercial enterprises because the tea trade was so profitable. To maximize their profits, everyone was competing to return their tea to Europe first.

Initially, Britain paid for all of this Chinese tea in silver. When that proved too costly, they proposed exchanging tea for another narcotic, opium. As a result, many grew addicted to the drug, causing a public health crisis in China. Then, in 1839, a Chinese official directed his soldiers to destroy major British opium shipments as a protest against Britain's hegemony in China. This act sparked the First Opium War between the two countries. Fighting raged along the Chinese coast until 1842, when the defeated Qing Dynasty surrendered Hong Kong to the British and began trading on harsh terms. For more than a century, the war harmed China's worldwide status. In order to have even more market control, the British East India company also wanted to be able to grow their own tea. Therefore, they hired botanist Robert Fortune to steal tea from China undercover. He assumed a false identity and embarked on a risky voyage through China's hilly tea regions before smuggling tea workers and trees into Darjeeling, India. From then, the plant continued to expand, which contributed to the quick rise of tea as a staple good.

Today, tea is the second most popular beverage in the world after water. There are almost as many ways to make tea as there are civilizations around the world, from salty Tibetan butter tea to sugary Turkish Rize tea.