Tea Basics

Tea History

The Origins of Tea

According to a common legend, tea was said to have been discovered by China's mythical second emperor, Shennong, who accidentally brewed tea one day after a dead leaf from a wild tea plant fell into his cup of boiled water, turning it a brownish color. The emperor drank the tea and found he enjoyed the taste. Tea was born.

Early Sipping

During the early ages, tea was processed and prepared differently than it is commonly done today. The tea leaves were steamed and ground and compressed into "teacakes" or bricks of tea. The teacake was then ground in a stone mortar into a powder and cooked in hot water. These tea cakes were later used for border trade bargains with the Mongolians, and Tibetans during the Tang Dynasty, often in exchange for horses.

Tea drinking methods gradually evolved from the tea cake cooking method to the ever more popular process of steeping loose tea throughout the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). During this time, the Japanese assisted in elevating tea's status to a true art form, when Buddhist monks brought tea to Japan because they found the stimulant properties useful in their meditations.

"Tea Comes to the New World"

Europeans, in particular the British, began to learn about tea through the travels of Dutch explorers who also introduced American colonists to organic tea in the mid-1600s. The British brought tea bushes (some would say they "stole the secret of tea" from the Chinese) to India, in the early 1800s. Starting in Assam, in the northeast of India, tea began to flourish. From Assam, English planters ("Britishers" as they were called in India) moved tea down the coast to Nilgiri and, most famously, to Darjeeling at the foothills of the Himalayas.

Tea became so popular by the 1700s that the British Parliament imposed a duty on tea and other goods imported into the British American colonies, which later resulted in a boycott of British imports and frequent smuggling in of Dutch teas. A few years later the protest of British tea taxes leads to the "Boston Tea Party," where disguised colonists raided British ships of tea and tossed about 45 tons of tea into the Boston Harbor.

The 1800s brought advancement to the tea trade and growth of teas popularity. American clipper ships sped up tea transports to America and Europe, making tea that much more accessible and economical as a common drinking practice and creating the need for larger tea companies and stores. In the 1900s, tea (in particular green tea) became just as popular and widely consumed as coffee.

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