A Potted History of Tea

Tea has a legendary, romantic history. From its beginnings in China to a Portuguese princess' marriage to a king, to smugglers, to the Boston Tea Party. Tea is now the second most consumed drink behind water.

Tea started its long history in China some 5,000 years ago.

The emperor Shen Nung, a shrewd and talented ruler, had all his drinking water boiled.

Legend has it that one day some leaves fell into the water from a nearby bush. Now the emperor was a scientist at heart so he tried drinking the brown liquid that was produced and found it tasty.

Tea the legend was born.

There was no holding tea back and it permeated every aspect of Chinese society. In 800 AD Lu Yu wrote the Ch'a Ching, a definitive guide to tea, its cultivation and its preparation. This propelled him into near sainthood in his own lifetime.

Tea in Japan

Lu Yu's work had been influenced by his upbringing as a Buddhist. Later the first tea seeds were taken to Japan by a Buddhist priest, Yeisei, who would become known in Japan as the Father of Tea. Again, tea spread into every aspect of Japanese society.

Tea consumption was elevated into an art form in the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Over time this became over-embellished and began to incorporate attitudes outside the original Zen Buddhism teachings. Three Zen priests are credited with restoring the art. One of them, Sen-no Rikkyu, is credited with setting the standards mostly used today.

EUROPE AND TEA

Portugal is credited with bringing tea to europe. Holland got in on the act when she came of age in Pacific trade. Tea was extremely popular and fashionable in Lisbon and the Hague — so much so that when the Portuguese princess Catharine of Braganza married Charles II of England she took a casket of tea with her and thus introduced tea into England. Tea also spread through France and, just like today, doctors and those “in-the-know” debated the negative and positive benefits of this fashionable beverage.

Meanwhile, back in England, tea was proving increasingly popular. Originally consumed in small, private boudoirs and purchased from apothecaries and dealers, by the the end of the 17th century the custom had arisen of offering it as a final drink before guests left.

In the mid 1600's the Dutch took the first tea to the colonists in the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (now New York). Later, when the English took the settlement they were stunned to find that the occupants were consuming more tea than the whole of England.