Tea History
The story of tea begins in China. According to legend, in 2737 BC, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water, when some leaves from the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia Sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea. It is impossible to know whether there is any truth in this story. But tea drinking certainly became established in China many centuries before it had even been heard of in the west. It became so popular in China that it was called one of the ‘seven necessities of life’. It was shortly after this that tea was first introduced to Japan; by Japanese Buddhist monks who travelled to China to study. Tea drinking has become a vital part of Japanese culture, as seen in the development of the Tea Ceremony. In the latter half of the sixteenth century there are the first brief mentions of tea as a drink among Europeans. These are mostly from Portuguese who were living in the East as traders and missionaries. But although some of these individuals may have brought back samples of tea to their native country, it was not the Portuguese who were the first to ship back tea as a commercial import. This was done by the Dutch, who in the last years of the sixteenth century began to encroach on Portuguese trading routes in the East. By the turn of the century they had established a trading post on the island of Java, and it was via Java that in 1606 the first consignment of tea was shipped from China to Holland. Tea soon became a fashionable drink among the Dutch, and from there spread to other countries in continental Western Europe, but because of its high price it remained a drink for the wealthy. It also flowed into Russia early on via camel trains that came from China on part of the famous Silk Road. In Britain, the Portuguese wife of Charles II helped establish tea as a fashionable drink in the mid 17th century. Within a few years of its introduction, the East India Company was importing tea into Britain and a national passion had begun. Tea initially came to America in the mid 1600s via the Dutch who started a settlement in New Amsterdam, which after acquiring the colony, the English renamed it New York. During the 19th century, tea drinking played an important role in social life, from tea parties to afternoon tea in both England and America. New tea traditions began to develop in America as the beverage’s popularity grew. Iced Tea originated in 1904 at the Worlds Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. A tea merchant and plantation owner from abroad had intended to provide visitors with free hot tea samples. However, due to the unusually hot weather, it was not a big hit. To promote sales, he asked a nearby ice cream vendor for some ice. The American iced tea tradition was born when he dumped the ice into the hot brewed tea. Today, tea is the world’s most popular beverage after water. At Teacasa we proudly carry on the ancient tea tradition, by packing our tea tins with artisan blends of whole leaves, herbs and sourcing only the finest single-estate teas.
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