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Tea
By Shougun Shaiya
"If you are cold, tea will warm you-
If you are heated, it will cool you-
If you are depressed, it will cheer you-
If you are excited, it will calm you."
-William E. Gladstone
A Short History Of Tea
Thank God for tea! What would the world
do without tea? -how would it exist? I am glad
I was not born before tea.
Sydney Smith
Polly put the kettle on, we'll all have tea
Charles Dickens
Barnaby Rudge
Almost four thousand years ago, as the story goes, the Chinese Emperor
Shen Nung was known for the practice of carefully boiling all his drinking
water. The Emperor, also refereed to as the Divine Healer, or Divine
Cultivator, noticed that people who boiled their water were healthier,
although no one knew why.
One day, Emperor Nung was waiting for his pot to
boil when a few leaves from a branch burning in his fire landed in the
hot water. The Emperor drank the tisane and liked the taste.
He identified the plant from which the leaves came and ordered his servants
to cultivate more of these plants in his garden. This shrub, of course,
was the wild tea plant.
A second story of the origin of tea concerns an
ancient Buddhist saint named Daruma. During the 6th Century A.D.
Daruma, an Indian holy man, traveled to China to spread his brand of Buddhism,
called Ch'an or Zen. One day, it is said, during a 12-year period
when he meditated continuously in front of a wall, Daruma fell asleep.
When he awoke, Daruma, called the Ta-Mo or White Buddha because of his
complexion, was so disturbed by his lack of discipline that he cut off
his eyelids to remind him of his weakness. Where the bloody eyelids
fell to the ground, tea plants, said to reduce the desire to sleep, miraculously
began to grow.
Not suprisingly, neither this story nor the earlier
account has a hard and true basis in historical fact.
The first actual written reference to tea may have
been in a 5th Century poem entitled The Lament of the Discarded Wife."
In this poem, Confucius referred to a certain type of plant that is now
generally assumed to be tea. However, the first officially confirmed
written record of tea, or "cha" as the Chinese call it, can be found in
the biography of a Chinese goverment official, who dies in 273 A.D.
Whatever tea's origins, we do know that by the 6th
Century A.D tea drinking and tea cultivation were commonplace in China.
Early tea drinkers used the beverage to cure a wide range of digestive
and nervous ailments. A tea poultice was also used to alleviate pain
and swelling of the joints. In some remote areas, farmers used compressed
blocks of tea as currency, a kind of "black gold," that could be traded
for food and livestock. In 1780 A.D., the Chinese goverment introduced
the first tea tax, bearing witness to tea's widespread use, not only as
a medical remedy but also as a refreshing drink.
By this time, tea has spread to Japan where, during
the next few centuries, tea drinking evolved into a serene and highly stylized
ritual, commonly known as the Japanese Tea Ceremony.
Tea did not reach Europe until 1610, when the Dutch
began to import it from China. When tea first arrived in the Netherlands,
it often cost the equivalent of $100 per pound. Hostesses from the
best families in Holland had tea parties, where 50 or more cups were served
to each guest along with cakes and pipe tobacco fr smoking. At these
ostentatious gatherings, people added sugar and saffron to their tea, while
loudly sipping drink from the saucer.
By the late 17th Century, tea had become popular
in England. Intellectuals, politicians and other members of the upper
classes drank tea, which was still expensive, in London coffeehouses.
In the 18th Century, Thomas Twining, a coffeehouse owner, took advantage
of this trend and opened a store that sold tea by weight. This business,
Twinings of London, survives today and is now managed by Sam Twining, a
ninth generation member of the family. Thanks in part to this one
family's marketing ability, it was not long before English people from
all walks of life were drinking their "cuppa" tea.
Source: The Book Of Tea, John Beilenson, 1989
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