History of tea

Four thousand years ago, give or take a day, Shen Nung, Chinese Emperor, was sitting under a tree while his servant boiled water. Leaves from the tree fell into the water and the Emperor, being a bit of an herbalist, decided to sample the infusion. Luckily it wasn’t poisonous. The leaves were from a wild tea tree. Tea was born.

The first written record of tea, reputedly by Duke Jidan of the Zhou Empire reads: “Cha - a bitter herb”.

An account of the attack by King Wu of Zhou on the last Emperor of the Shung Dynasty in 1066 BC tells us that soldiers from State Shu brought with them “red lacquer, tea and bee honey as a tribute to the King”. Proof that tea had by then become a commodity of tribute and status.

By the 1st Century AD, writings said “Tea is as indispensable in daily life as rice and salt” and Lu Yu, writer of the first book dedicated entirely to tea, described it as “the dew of Heaven”.

Chinese and Japanese legends tell the origin of tea from a Buddhist perspective. Legend says that Bodhidharma, the first Zen monk was engaged in seven years sleepless contemplation of Buddha for so long that his eyebrows fell off and where they fell, the first tea bush sprouted. Another legend suggests that he felt so tired that he plucked leaves from a bush and chewed them. Instantly he was revived. The bush was, of course, a wild tea tree. Does it matter which is more accurate? They both bring us the joy of tea!

Tea came west across the caravan routes of Asia. The Venetians knew it in the 14th Century. However, it was popularised in Europe by the Portuguese and Dutch, the two great trading nations who opened up the sea routes to the East. As the trade grew, England became interested in the profits to be made and the East India Company became involved.

Tea became the new beverage of choice in London’s coffee houses. Tea rapidly replaced gin and ale as the drink of the populace and was soon to become the breakfast drink of choice, much to the government’s dismay - even in those days, it made a lot of money from taxes on alcohol!

Charles II and his government took action. Firstly, with a ban on the sale of tea, coffee and chocolate from private houses. This was so unpopular it never became law. But by 1676 there were taxes slapped on tea - and by the 1750s it was as high as 119%! This did not make the governments who imposed the taxes very popular. It also encouraged smuggling and a network (almost like the drug dealers of this century) distributed the illegal contraband around the country. Churches were often used as storage areas!

Tea was never cheap in those days - a pound of tea could cost almost half of the average weekly wage.

Even though there were laws against it, unscrupulous dealers added other things to black tea to add to their profits - anything from willow and sloe leaves and sheep’s droppings were used.

The middle of the 17th Century saw the introduction of the tea clippers. These elegant ships, built for speed, halved the time it took to get tea back from the East.

The Cutty Sark is probably the most famous of the tea clippers although she only transported tea on eight voyages.

In the early 1800s, Anna, wife of the Duke of Bedford, introduced the idea of afternoon tea because she felt hungry between lunch and dinner.

The working classes caught the tea habit early on and household servants often had a tea allowance added to (or deducted from) their wages.

By 1938 tea was the breakfast choice for almost 94% of working class families of the day.

Today, tea is still Britain’s most popular drink - in fact, we drink 175 million cups a day, that’s about 3 1/2 cups for every person over the age of ten.

The Tea Bush

The original teabush was Camellia sinensis, a Chinese evergreen shrub related to the ordinary garden Camellia. Camellia assamitica was found in 1840 in Assam. It is used in India but not in China. Today a hybrid of the two is often used in India.

Climate, soil, altitude and orientation all affect the growth and quality of the plants and thus the resulting colour, taste and aroma of the tea. (In exactly the same way that the conditions surrounding the grape affect the taste and quality of wine.)

The best bushes are cultivated at about 2000m with harvesting usually being carried out in spring. In Darjeeling harvesting continues through June - Autumnal harvests producing a particular flavour.

In the wild, the tea bush becomes a tea tree and can reach a height of 10m. In fact, some grateful Emperors of China planted gardens of wild tea trees in celebration of the taste of the brew.

In cultivation the shrubs are limited to 1.2m so the leaves can be easily picked by hand.