Lu Yu's Cha Jing, the first monograph on the subject, written under the Tang dynasty (760)
The Classic of Tea, in three scrolls; Lu Yu was later worshipped as a patron deity of the trade.
General knowledge · Food & drink
Tea
Drunk in China for around two millennia; in Britain from the 1650s
Food and drink — one plant, six processes and an empire
Every true variety comes from a single species, Camellia sinensis, and the differences between them are made after picking, by how far the leaf is allowed to oxidise. The plant was domesticated in China, where Lu Yu wrote the first monograph on it in the eighth century; it reached England in the 1650s and was made fashionable by Charles II's Portuguese queen, Catherine of Braganza. Duty on it provoked the Boston Tea Party, the trade with China provoked the Opium Wars, and Robert Fortune's theft of plants and knowledge from China for the East India Company in the 1840s founded the Indian industry. It is the most consumed drink in the world after water.
How to spot them
- ▸One species, Camellia sinensis; the type decided by oxidation, not by plant
- ▸The Classic of the subject, written in Tang China in the eighth century
- ▸A Portuguese princess who married Charles II and brought the habit to court
- ▸A Scottish botanist who smuggled plants out of China in Wardian cases
- ▸Flavoured with bergamot and named after a prime minister
Key facts
Catherine of Braganza married Charles II in 1662 and made the habit fashionable at the English court (1662)
Her dowry included Bombay and Tangier. Thomas Twining opened his shop on the Strand in 1706.
Colonists disguised as Mohawks tipped 342 chests into a harbour in December 1773 (1773)
The Boston Tea Party, a protest against the Tea Act and the East India Company's monopoly.
Robert Fortune, disguised as a Chinese official, shipped 20,000 plants out of China in Wardian cases (1848)
Industrial espionage for the East India Company that established plantations in Assam and Darjeeling.
A variety native to north-east India, with a larger leaf, identified as distinct in the 1830s
Camellia sinensis var. assamica, as against var. sinensis — the basis of the Indian industry.
Rolled into pellets and named for the English word for a shotgun charge
Gunpowder green tea.
Dried leaf scented with bergamot orange oil and named after the prime minister who passed the Reform Act
Earl Grey, for Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, prime minister 1830–1834.
Anna, seventh Duchess of Bedford, is credited with filling the long gap before a late dinner (1840)
The invention of afternoon tea.
Key ideas
- The six classes — white, green, yellow, oolong, black and dark (pu-erh) — are a scale of processing. Green is heated at once to stop oxidation, black is fully oxidised, oolong is partial, and pu-erh is genuinely fermented by microbes and improves with age.
- What the Chinese call 'red tea' (hongcha) is what the English call black tea; the English name refers to the dry leaf, the Chinese to the liquor.
Quick-fire facts
- •All true varieties come from Camellia sinensis; herbal infusions such as rooibos and chamomile are properly tisanes
- •The two main cultivated varieties are var. sinensis, small-leaved and Chinese, and var. assamica, large-leaved and Indian
- •Lu Yu's Cha Jing, the Classic of Tea, was written in the eighth century under the Tang dynasty
- •The English and most European words derive from the Min Chinese te, carried by Dutch sea traders; chai, chay and cha derive from the Mandarin chá, carried overland
- •Catherine of Braganza, queen of Charles II from 1662, made the drink fashionable in England; Thomas Twining's shop opened on the Strand in 1706
- •The Boston Tea Party of 16 December 1773 destroyed 342 chests belonging to the East India Company
- •Robert Fortune smuggled plants, seeds and Chinese workers out of China for the East India Company from 1848, using Wardian cases
- •China and India are the largest producers; Kenya is the largest exporter of black tea
- •Darjeeling, Assam and Nilgiri are Indian growing regions; Ceylon tea comes from Sri Lanka, where plantations replaced coffee after a leaf-rust epidemic from the 1860s
- •Afternoon tea is traditionally credited to Anna Russell, 7th Duchess of Bedford, around 1840
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss — The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide
- Sarah Rose — For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World's Favourite Drink
- Alan Davidson — The Oxford Companion to Food