The discovery of this
magic leaf is lost among the folktales of wise men. It
goes back to Emperor Shen Nung of China, the first
herbalist, who lived almost three thousand years before
Christ and taught people the value of boiling water and
cultivating land. It was by accident that Shen Nung
discovered a leaf of a camellia-like bush in his steaming
cup of water. Sipping the concoction, he found a drink
far more refreshing and exhilarating than plain water.
In Japan, the discovery
of tea goes something like this. Daruma, the monk who
brought Zen Buddhism to China and Japan began a nine year
meditation in 520 A.D. in a cave-temple near Canton, but
growing weary after many months of staring at a stone
wall, he fell asleep. Awaking, Daruma was so dismayed, he
cut off his eyelids and threw them to the ground. It was
there, the Japanese say, that the first tea plant grew,
providing the monk with an elixir which kept him alert
during his reverie.
By the 8th Century, tea found its place in Chinese literature and legislation. The poet Lu Yu wrote the definitive commentary on tea in 780 A.D., and the tea classic 'Cha Ching' described how tea was grown, produced and enjoyed. With each succeeding year, tea evolved a step further, culminating in its Golden Age during the Tang Dynasty. It was also during this
period that this flavorful commodity was introduced to
Japan in the form of tea brick moulds, by the Buddhist
monks returning from pilgrimages to China. The Sung
Dynasty (960-1280 A.D.) saw the tea culture blossom in
both China and Japan. Powdered tea and delicate porcelain
came into vogue. So did tea houses. In fact, most of the
tea rituals we are familiar with, date to this
period.
In the 16th Century,
when European traders and missionaries began to visit the
Orient, word of this magic beverage spread to the west.
England was introduced to tea by the Dutch in the early
1600s, but it remained a drink of the aristocrats till
the coffee houses started advertising it variously as a
cure-all, an elixir, a longevity drink and most important
of all, as an alternative to coffee. It was considered a
man's drink till Chales II's consort, Catherine
introduced it as the fashionable breakfast drink to
replace ale.
Russians became
enamoured with the new drink around the same time, which
was brought by camel caravans trekking across Mongolia.
North Americans learned about brewing in the mid 17th
Century when the Dutch settled on the small island of New
York, but the new settlers preferred boiling the leaves
and eating them with salt and butter rather than
drinking.
Within a hundred years
of its introduction to Great Britain, tea had become an
international commodity with lavish tea gardens
everywhere with hawkers in street corners selling it, but
its popularity in America imploded when the British
government levied a special tax on teas destined for
colonies. The colonies bocotted it, tea sales plummeted,
and it ended in the famous Boston Tea Party of December
1773 where tea chests were dunked in the harbour, setting
the stage for the American Revolution.
Now, in the 21st
Century, tea is a universal beverage, with a presence in
millions of people's daily lives - a staple diet in some
countries, a ritual in others, equivalent of a handshake
for some, a way of telling time in England, and by far,
the most powerful and popular beverage in the world after
water.
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