Tea History

Tea has a rich history in both fact and fiction. While its discovery is deeply rooted in legend, its growth in popularity (second only to water in worldwide consumption) is intertwined with real-world economic, social, and political maneuvering. English critic and historian Isaac D’Israeli said “The progress of this famous plant has been something very like the progress of truth; suspected at first, though very palatable to those who had the courage to taste it; resisted as it encroached; abused as its popularity spread; and establishing its triumph at last, in cheering the whole land from the palace to the cottage, only by slow and resistless efforts of time and its own virtues.”

Eyelids of Bodhidharma
One of the most vivid legends about the origin of tea involves the founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma. As the story goes, Bodhidharma ventured into a cave to meditate for nine years, seeking enlightenment. However, he fell asleep in the midst of his meditation. Frustrated, Bodhidharma tore off his own eyelids to ensure he would never fall asleep again. Where his eyelids touched the ground, tea plants are said to have sprouted. To this day, Bodhidharma is honored in the Zen tea ceremony because of his legendary role in the origin of tea.

The Emperor’s Accidental Brew
During the reign of the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung (2737-2696 BCE), water was boiled for hygienic purposes. According to legend, one day the Emperor was boiling water over a fire fueled by branches from a nearby tea bush when some leaves blew into the pot. Before he could retrieve them, the leaves began to brew. Curious as both a scholar and an herbalist, Shen Nung decided to taste the brew. And thus, tea was introduced to the world!

Tea Catches on in Asia
Originally consumed for medicinal purposes—often mixed with shallots, ginger, garlic, or plums—tea grew in popularity in China. By the 4th century, tea had become so popular that China began cultivating it rather than harvesting it from the wild. By the early 8th century, tea had become an integral part of Chinese life and was recognized as the “national beverage.” In 780 AD, the poet Lu Yu was commissioned by tea merchants to write the "Ch'a Ching," documenting the contemporary knowledge of tea. Tea is believed to have crossed Chinese borders for the first time in the 5th century, likely used for bartering with Turkish traders. By the late 6th century, tea had accompanied Buddhist monks to Japan, where it quickly became an essential part of Japanese culture. Over the centuries, variations in tea production led to the emergence of the contemporary styles of green, oolong, pu-erh, and black teas during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD).

East Meets West
While it is likely that tea reached Europe through Turkish traders along the Silk Road as early as the 5th century, consistent European trade in tea did not begin until the Portuguese landed in China in 1516, having discovered a sea route to the East. Dutch merchants entered the tea trade in the early 17th century, successfully spreading tea throughout Europe. Britain was the last of the three great maritime nations to join the tea trade, but once tea was introduced, it quickly became Britain’s most popular beverage, helping propel the nation to global superpower status. As historian Tom Standage put it, “The story of tea is the story of imperialism, industrialization, and world domination, one cup at a time” ("A History of the World in 6 Glasses"). Britain granted the John Company (which later merged with the East India Company) a monopoly on all trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of Cape Horn, allowing it to dominate the tea trade for over a century. The company's powers were nearly equivalent to those of a sovereign nation, including the ability to acquire and govern territory, mint its own money, declare war, and pass laws. It was the largest and most powerful monopoly in world history. One of its most lasting contributions to tea history was the establishment of large-scale commercial tea production in India in the early 1820s. Since then, India has consistently been one of the world’s top tea producers.

The Boston Tea Party
Most Americans associate tea with their high school history classes and the Boston Tea Party. But did you know that the Dutch were the first to introduce tea to the North American colonies in the mid-1600s? It was an immediate hit, and the colonies consumed more tea than all of England at that time. After the French and Indian War, the British government increased taxes on various goods in the colonies. The colonists protested, but this only led to further tax hikes. In June 1767, the British instituted the tea tax, hoping to profit from the colonists' immense demand for tea. Instead, the colonists boycotted British tea, which was left to rot in Boston Harbor. By December of that year, the colonists had had enough. A group of men from Boston, including prominent figures like Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere, dressed as Native Americans, boarded British merchant ships, and tossed hundreds of pounds of tea overboard. This event, known as the Boston Tea Party, became a significant precursor to the colonial declaration of revolution.

Ceylon Tea History
Curiously, the story of Ceylon tea begins not with Camellia sinensis but with cinnamon. The island now known as Sri Lanka was historically referred to as “Ceylon” by British colonial powers until it gained independence in 1972—hence, the name of Ceylon teas. The first Europeans to colonize the island were the Dutch, who controlled it and its people from the mid-17th century until the end of the 19th century, during which time they grew enormous quantities of cinnamon. After the British took control of Ceylon, the cinnamon market collapsed, prompting the colonial powers to invest in another cash crop: coffee. From about 1840 to 1870, there was a coffee boom, with soaring prices making it incredibly profitable. Unfortunately, in the mid-1860s, a coffee blight struck Ceylon, devastating thousands of plantations and shifting the focus to tea. Tea had been introduced to Sri Lanka around the same time as coffee—circa 1824—but coffee was initially grown as a cash crop, whereas the tea plant was merely added to the Royal Botanical Gardens. It wasn't until 1867 that a British man named James Taylor planted a tea plantation at Loolecondera, an estate in the central highlands of the island. In 1875, Taylor’s first shipment of tea arrived in London—a modest 23 pounds—but by 1890, his Loolecondera plantation was shipping 22,900 tons of tea to England, making tea Ceylon’s primary source of revenue.

Iced Tea is Born
The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair provided an opportunity for merchants worldwide to showcase their products. Little did tea merchant Richard Blechynden know that it would also mark the beginning of America's love affair with iced tea! Amid a sweltering St. Louis summer, Blechynden's attempts to promote Indian black tea at the fair were proving unsuccessful, as hot tea was the last thing on attendees’ minds. So, the enterprising merchant and his team devised an apparatus through which their brewed Indian tea flowed through iced lead pipes, creating a chilled beverage that was well-received by fairgoers. Not only did Blechynden succeed in promoting Indian tea at the fair, but he also discovered America's seemingly unquenchable thirst for iced black tea—a thirst that continues to this day.

Although iced black tea was formally introduced in 1904, Americans had been enjoying iced teas for at least a century before the World's Fair. The first iced teas served in the U.S. were tea punches, made from a blend of infused green tea, sugar, sweet cream, and liquor, wine, or champagne. The first published recipe for a tea punch appeared in an 1839 cookbook titled The Kentucky Housewife. Like tea punches, classic southern sweet teas predate the 1904 World’s Fair. The first sweet tea recipe was published in an 1879 cookbook by Marion Cabell Tyree called Housekeeping in Old Virginia. It called for green tea, sugar, and lemon. The first instance of sweet tea made with black tea was published in Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking in 1884, in a recipe called "Iced Tea or Russian Tea." While Russians did not typically drink iced tea at that time, they predominantly drank hot black tea, so the “Russian” in this recipe likely referred to using black tea rather than green tea.

A Tea Alternative: Rooibos
The word “rooibos” comes from Afrikaans and means “red bush,” which is an apt description of the plant. Other names for rooibos include “bush tea,” “red bush tea,” “South African red tea,” or simply “red tea.” Rooibos isn’t technically a tea plant; it’s not derived from Camellia sinensis like black, green, or oolong tea. Instead, it’s a legume—a bean plant known as Aspalathus linearis. The leaves and stems are harvested in the summer, then left to “ferment” (technically “oxidize”), during which they change from a yellow appearance to the characteristic red color before being dried. Drinking rooibos as a tea alternative began with the Dutch. Black tea was in vogue in 18th-century South Africa, but technological limitations made it difficult to import, prompting Dutch settlers to seek an alternative. That alternative was rooibos, the drink of choice among the indigenous peoples. This tea alternative remained popular in South Africa for centuries but didn’t become a commercial crop until the early 20th century. A man named Benjamin Ginsburg, who immigrated to South Africa in 1904, was immediately interested in rooibos, coming from a prominent family in the European tea trade. Ginsburg borrowed traditional Chinese tea curing methods to enhance rooibos processing. Since he couldn't properly cultivate the plant himself, Ginsburg relied on native farmers to gather it from the mountains until the early 1930s, when he persuaded Dr. le Fras Nortier to attempt rooibos cultivation in the lowlands. After years of experimentation, Dr. Nortier succeeded, and the Klein Kliphuis farm became the first rooibos tea farm. Since then, rooibos has grown in popularity worldwide due to its taste and health benefits.

More than a century later, the Khoi and San tribes (non-Bantu indigenous peoples of South Africa) who shared their traditional knowledge of the rooibos plant won a landmark case with the South African government to receive a portion of future rooibos sales. In 2019, it was announced that the San and Khoi communities, along with a third group of small-scale non-white rooibos farmers in the Cederberg region who had been disadvantaged under apartheid, would receive 1.5% of the "farm gate price" of rooibos. This agreement was significant not only because it provided restitution and equity for indigenous peoples but also because it was the first such arrangement since the 2010 ratification of the Nagoya Protocol of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. This international law established rules for compensating communities whose knowledge of biodiversity is used by businesses or scientists.

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