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The fascinating history of tea - abridged!

The history of tea is long and complex story so this account is necessarily just a brief summary. The name of the small leaf variety of the tea plant, known as Camellia sinensis, which thrives in the cool, high mountain regions of central China and Japan indicates the origins of the story. The story of how people came to drink tea in the first place is lost in the mythology of ancient China but it is certain that by the 3rd Century AD it was sufficiently well established to merit its own written character - ch'a, a direct descendant of which is the Char in Char Chars.

Tangs for the Dynasty

By the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD) tea was the national drink of China at all levels of society. During the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD) tea drinking also became popular in Japan, introduced there by a Zen Buddhist monk who had been studying in China. At that time the method of storing tea involved drying and grounding green tea leaves. Boiling water was poured onto the powder and the resulting tea left to brew before being whipped into a froth.

Tea drinking waned in popularity but was revived as part of the reassertion of the Chinese way of life during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) following years of Mongol domination. This was when the modern method of preparing tea, steeping cured loose leaves in boiling water, was introduced and the period also witnessed a huge expansion in the varieties of tea being drunk. The cultural significance and mysticism surrounding tea in China was given concrete form in the eighth century in a fascinating treatise on tea, the Ch'a Ching, written by a Chinese scholar called Lu Yu.

Tea for Tau

Taoism was a central faith in China at the time and its beliefs that every detail of life was an act of living that was worthy of celebration, and that one should attempt to find beauty everywhere in the world are enshrined in the Ch'a Ching in the description of the state of mind required for drinking tea and the elaborate rituals required for its preparation and serving. Every detail from the planting of the tea plant to the very best time for harvesting to the implements used and where the added water should be found is covered. The association of tea drinking with feelings of tranquility has come directly down to us through the centuries and has manifested itself in the stress relieving wartime cuppa or the snatched moment of calm in a hectic day.

and Zen...

The influence of the book was felt in Japan where the Tea Ceremony (Cha-no-yu) almost certainly developed from it. The ceremony was based on the tea-drinking rituals of Zen Buddhist monks in China, who believed tea's properties as a stimulant were an aid to meditation. Three Tea Masters played a large part in the development of the ritual aspects of the Ceremony. The last of these, Sen No Rikyu (1522 - 1591) , incorporated the essence of Zen into the Tea Ceremony, and it is in the form of the Way of Tea (chado) which he developed that it is mostly practised to this day. A variety of forms of the ritual have developed, many of which are less formal but they still require a sense of discipline and embody the idea that freedom and beauty can be found within a strict form.

Even in Victorian and 20th Century Britain there were ritual aspects to being invited to tea with the use of the best tea service, the serving of cakes with the cuppa and the task of the hostess to maintain a satisfactory level of chit chat whilst avoiding controversy.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of commerce

In an act of huge subsequent significance, in 1600 Queen Elizabeth I gave a royal charter to a new trading company, the East India Company, by which it was given a monopoly over all British trade with the Indies. At the time this did not amount to much since the Portuguese had a monopoly of trade with "the Indies". The East India Company's first major base was in western India. Charles II actually extended its privileges to allow the Company to take military action to establish itself in places where it wished to trade.

Charles II's Queen, Catherine of Braganza was a Portuguese princess who had grown up with a taste for tea. When she came to England, tea gradually became a fashionable drink in courtly and aristocratic circles. China tea was first imported to Britain by the East India Company in 1664. By the eighteenth century things were very different. Tea drinking had really taken hold in the whole population, and the East India Company's imports rocketed. A combination of the company's monopoly and high taxes encouraged a lively smuggling trade in tea.

This really hit the profits of the East India Company. It built up a considerable surplus of tea and obtained permission from the government to reduce this "tea mountain" by exporting to the British colony of America. This tea was also to be taxed and the combination of the British imposed tax and a Company monopoly on distribution outraged the Americans to the point where in 1773 Company ships full of tea were unloaded straight into Boston Harbour in what became know as the Boston Tea Party. This memorable historical event helped spark the American War of Independence.

Home, home in the Raj

William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister in Britain and passed the Commutation Act of 1784, in which he slashed the tax on tea so dramatically that smuggling became pointless. However the Company came under increasing pressure once an independent America established its own free and independent tea trade with China. By the 1830s the Company faced mounting criticsm over its restrictions on trade and had already lost its monopoly on trade with India (though not with China). Its dual role in commerce and military conquest in India was also under question since a commercial company now virtually governed half of India. Attacks were made on a Company that attempted "to act at once as sovereigns and tea dealers."

In 1834, Parliament's new charter for the Company finally abolished its trading functions altogether. Instead, the Company became an agent of the British government, administering British India on behalf of the Crown. Whilst it held a monopoly on trade with China there had been no incentive to grow tea elsewhere but suddenly there was a clear incentive to begin growing tea in India. A thorough investigation was made of the most suitable sites on which to grow bushes from imported Chinese seed. One obvious area for growing tea was Assam where indigenous tea plants had already been found growing.

All the tea in India

The first auction of Assam tea in London proved a huge success and by 1855 imports of Assam tea exceeded half a million pounds in weight. Meanwhile the East India Company was proving itself a heavy handed administrator and following a rebellion in 1857 the Company was relieved of its role and the first Viceroy appointed.

With the exception of Darjeeling, which was producing high-quality but low-yielding tea crops, there had been little tea cultivation outside Assam. The new British administration in India saw the potential for more widespread cultivation and offered generous land leases to would-be tea planters. By 1888 Indian tea production had reached 86 million lbs - and for the first time British tea imports from India exceeded those from China. Oddly enough the demise of the company which had been key to the establishment of tea drinking in Britain led to a massive growth in the tea trade.

Another effect of the freeing up of the tea trade was that there was suddenly a new competitiveness about getting tea from China or India to Britain. A few canny sailors realised that whoever brought the tea from each new harvest to Britain first stood to make the most money. This was partly because the first home could sell a shipment of tea before any competitors had even arrived and partly because consumers in the nineteenth century believed that the fresher and earlier-picked the tea, the better the resulting drink.

Clipper 'ere

The Americans pioneered the first fast and slender clipper ships. They earned their name from the way that they 'clipped off' the miles. The first true tea clipper was Rainbow, launched in 1845. She made the journey from New York to Canton in 102 days - taking more than two weeks off the previous record for that trip. In 1849 a British change in law meant that American ships where now allowed to compete in the transportation of British tea.

The first clipper to take advantage of this was Oriental, which arrived at West India Dock in London on 3 December 1850 - just 97 days after leaving Hong Kong. British merchants were horrified - this was three times as fast as the old lumbering East Indiamen which had been used by the East India Company. They resolved to build their own clippers to rival the Americans, and the first British tea clipper, Stornaway, was built in Aberdeen in 1850.

After this, tea clippers were designed and built in Britain throughout the 1850s and 1860s; they had a narrower beam than their American equivalents, making them less powerful in heavy weather, but faster in lighter winds. There was a great spirit of competition between the British and American ships plying the tea trade in what amounted to a series of races. Immense public enthusiasm developed for these races and huge amounts of money were wagered on the outcome.

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 sounded the death knell for the clipper trade since, with a much shorter route now available only to the steamers it was more efficient to use them to transport a bulk cargo like tea from China to Britain. The only remaining tea clipper in the world, the Cutty Sark, could be seen in dry dock in Greenwich, London but was unfortunately devastated by fire in May 2007. Hopefully it will be restored.

...and Bags

Many changes took place in tea drinking over the years. The late eighteenth century saw black tea overtake green tea in popularity for the first time, which also accelerated the addition of milk. In the 20th Century the tea bag was introduced. It owed its origin to the belief that tea leaves were best removed at the end of the brewing period. Tea strainers were no longer needed and tea pots needed less cleaning. Tea could be made directly in a mug.

Tea bags were not the first infusion devices - infusers included tea eggs and tea balls - perforated metal containers which were filled with loose leaves and immersed in boiling water, and then removed using an attached chain.

During 1908 the first tea bags were introduced in America and they were adopted with enthusiasm. Britain took much longer - until the nineteen fifties - to come to terms with the humble tea bag. Their share of the domestic market had risen sharply by the arrival of the twenty-first century but recently the focus has been on "quality" in both food and drink There is no doubting that there is a quality issue with the tea sold in tea bags and that has reminded people of the many good reasons for brewing tea with leaves in a teapot the "proper" way.

Thank you for reading this far. Much more than this could be told about the history of tea. We are indebted to The Tea Council for a much more comprehensive history and would thoroughly recommend a visit to their site to those seeking the full story.