Our Cup Of Tea
Teresa M. Chen, Ph.D.
The origin of the English word tea is te, as it is pronounced in the Southern
Min dialect region of coastal China, which includes Xiamen (Amoy), Chaozhou,
and the island of Taiwan. Tea was first mentioned in the Book of Odes, approximately
600 B.C., though legend has its discovery dating back to Shennong of about 2,700
B.C.
Tea is an infusion made from steeping leaves of the tea plant in boiling water.
Originally it was used medicinally to ward off fatigue or as an antidote to excess
alcohol and rich food. Because of its stimulating aroma and pleasant taste, as
well as its refreshing effects, tea has become the beverage of China for nearly
tow thousand years.
By 350 A.D. tea-drinking has become quite common among the intelligentsia. The
Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) saw tea advanced to an art in the hands of Tea Masters
like Lu Yu who wrote a comprehensive Book of Tea in which he described in detail
numerous varieties of tea, their origin, and the picking, processing, and preparation
of tea. Lu Yu placed special emphasis on the purity of water for making tea. Reputedly
he was able to discern subtle differences in water quality.
Tender tea leaves were picked at dawn in early spring on high mountain slopes.
The freshly picked leaves would be dried in a furnace, pounded and pressed into
a mould to form a cake. Tea is prepared by taking slices or slabs from the cake,
grinding the packed leaves into powder, passing it through a sieve and then swishing
the powder in hot water, the use of tea powder prevailed in the Tang Dynasty
and spread to Japan in the ninth century.
The demands for tea by the imperial court spurred the cultivation of tea and
the growth of a tea industry fully controlled by government. As tea was used
to barter for horses for military use, private trade was forbidden. The crafts
of making earthenware utensils and wooden or bamboo accessories for tea were
also developed in Tang times.
The art of tea rose to new heights with the refinement of ceramic pottery in
the Song Dynasty (960-1280 A.D.). Loose-leaf tea such as we use today became
popular during this period. Tea leaves are partially or fully fermented before
roasting, resulting in three classes of tea: green tea (unfermented), wulong
tea (60-75% fermented) and black tea (fully fermented).
The Emperor Hui-Zong was a tea master. He wrote a treatise on tea cultivation,
processing, tea utensils, and the art of tea drinking. The Emperor Qian-Long
of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1910 A.D.) was also a tea connoisseur. His tearoom,
san Xi Tang, was reconstructed in the Palace Museum in Taipei with vast collection
of tea utensils on display.
Tea is now grown in more than forty countries all over the world/ It is still
a popular beverage rivaled only by coffee and cocoa in the twentieth century.
Most Chinese prefer drinking their tea without additives. Aromatic flowers and
fruit such as Jasmine, roses, and hawthorn berries were assed to lower grades
of tea to give them new characters so as to command better prices.
The Manchus,
like the Mongols and Tibetans, often as added butter or mild to their tea. As
tea drinking reached England in the eighteenth century, the English adopted the
Manchus way of drinking tea with mild. Besides milk and sugar, other additives
commonly used are lemon and honey, mint, and barley. Other herbs can also be
added, though an infusion of medicinal herbs can be called an herb tea in its
own right. Examples are ginseng tea, chrysanthemum tea, and honey suckle tea.
Yet, tea is the ultimate of all herb teas.
The “tea doctor” Lu Tong enumerated the benefits of drinking tea
in his poem, translated into English by Johh Blofeld in The Chinese Art of Tea
(Shambhala Publications, 1985):
