The Story of the World Vol. 3 Co-op: Chapter 20: The Imperial East

Activities for this chapter

history of tea:

types of tea: https://www.teasource.com/pages/types-of-tea, Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea#China, history of tea: http://www.mightyleaf.com/about-us/learn/history-of-tea

Tea likely originated in southwest China during the Shang dynasty as a medicinal drink.[1] An early credible record of tea drinking dates to the 3rd century AD. The earliest physical evidence known to date, found in 2016, were identified as tea from the genus Camellia particularly via mass spectrometry.

The Chinese learned to process tea in a different way in the mid-13th century. Tea leaves were roasted and then crumbled rather than steamed. By the Yuan and Ming dynasties, unfermented tea leaves were first pan-fried, then rolled and dried. This stops the oxidation process which turns the leaves dark and allows tea to remain green. In the 15th century, Oolong tea, where the tea leaves were allowed to partially ferment before pan-frying, was developed.[28] Western taste, however, preferred the fully oxidized black tea, and the leaves were allowed to ferment further. Yellow tea was an accidental discovery in the production of green tea during the Ming dynasty, when apparently sloppy practices allowed the leaves to turn yellow, but yielded a different flavour as a result.[29]

Tea was first introduced to Portuguese priests and merchants in China during the 16th century.[3]

Drinking tea became popular in Britain during the 17th century. The British introduced tea production, as well as tea consumption, to India, in order to compete with the China monopoly on tea.[4]

The first record of tea in English came from a letter by Richard Wickham, who ran an East India Company office in Japan in 1615. Peter Mundy, a traveller and merchant wrote in 1637, "chaa — only water with a kind of herb boiled in it “. In 1657, Thomas Garway, was the first to sell tea in London charging between 16 and 50 shiilings per pound. The same year, tea was listed as an item in the price list in a London coffee house, and the first advertisement for tea appeared in 1658. It is probable that early imports were smuggled via Amsterdam or through sailors arriving on eastern boats.[44] The marriage of King Charles II in 1662 to the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza also brought the tea drinking habit to court. Official trade of tea began in 1664 with an import of only two pound two ounces for presentation to the king, but grew to 24 million pounds a year by 1801.

Regular trade was controlled by two monopolies: the Chinese Cohong (trading companies) and the British East India Company.[44] It was initially promoted as a medicinal beverage or tonic[44] but by the end of the seventeenth century was taken as an all-purpose drink, though it was expensive.[44] Tea was not traded in significant amounts until the 18th century. By 1700 tea was being sold by grocers and tea shops in London. By the 1720s black tea overtook green tea in popularity as the price dropped, and early on British drinkers began adding sugar and milk to tea, a practice that was not done in China.[44] As prices continued to drop, tea became increasingly popular, and by 1750 had become the British national drink.[44] A fungus reduced Ceylon's coffee production by 95% in the 19th century, cementing tea's popularity.[47]

The escalation of tea importation and sales over the period 1690 to 1750 is mirrored closely by the increase in importation and sales of cane sugar: the British were not drinking just tea but sweet tea.[44] Thus, two of Britain's trading triangles converged: the sugar sourced from Britain's trading triangle encompassing Britain, Africa and the West Indies and the tea from the triangle encompassing Britain, India and China.[44]

As a way to generate the silver needed as payment for tea, Britain began exporting opium from the traditional growing regions of British India (in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan) into China. Although opium use in China had a long history, the British importation of opium, which began in the late 18th century, increased fivefold between 1821 and 1837, and usage of the drug became more widespread across Chinese society. The Qing government attitude towards opium, which was often ambivalent, hardened due to the social problems created by drug use, and took serious measures to curtail importation of opium in 1838–39. Tea by now had become an important source of tax revenue for the British Empire and the banning of the opium trade and thus the creation of funding issues for tea importers was one of the main causes of the First Opium War.[49]

While waging war on China was one of Britain's tactics, it also began to explore, then executed, a plan to use India for growing tea. After tea plants were smuggled out of China, plantations were established in areas such as Darjeeling, Assam, and Ceylon.[50] As an attempt to circumvent its dependence on Chinese tea, the East India Company sent Scottish botanist Robert Fortune to China to purchase and bring out of China tea plants, which were then taken to India, although it was the discovery of native varieties of tea plant in India which proved more important for the development of production there.

Tea remained a very important item in Britain's global trade, contributing in part to Britain's global dominance by the end of the eighteenth century. To this day tea is seen worldwide as a symbol of 'Britishness', but also, to some, as a symbol of old British colonialism.[44]