| After tea's discovery and entrenchment into Chinese culture, tea was probably first used for medicinal reasons rather than consumption. Long before its fashionable ascension as a comestible in the T'ang dynasty, tea had joined the ranks of ginseng and certain mushrooms within the Chinese pharmacopoei. Touted as healing a wide range of ailments, tea supposedly promoted digestion, dissolved fats, neutralized poisons, cured dysentery, fought lung disease, lowered fevers aned treated epilepsy. Tea was also thought to be an effective astringent for cleaning sores and recommended for washing the eyes and mouth. The leaf moved into the realm of artistic during the Tang dynasty in China. In 800 Lu Yu, penned the oldest surviving tea manual the Cha Ching or Scripture of Tea which described an elaborate ceremony of tea making from picking the leaves to serving. Drawing from his vast memory of observed events and places, he codified the various methods of tea cultivation and preparation in ancient China. All tea at this time was green, which kept rather poorly unless made into cakes. |  | Tea ways changed as tea use and tea plantations grew more widespread during the Sung dynasty, with its use being incorporated into Zen Buddhist ceremonies. Eventually tea came to be seen as currency where a brick of tea could buy horses. In the 16th through 18th centuries teahouses became social centres in China with poetry readings, opera singings, dancing and tea as the entertainment. Like coffeehouses of the Islamic world, teahouses played a large part in the political life of the country. For example, the 1911 revolution was plotted in the backroom of a Shanghai teahouse. Most teahouses served food, the most common fare being dim sum.  | The first tea seeds were brought to Japan by the Buddhist priest Eisai in the late 12th century, the Father of Tea in Japan; who saw the value of tea as a practical way to keep awake before Meditation. Because of this early connection, tea in Japan has always been associated with Zen Buddhism. | By the 17th century, leaf tea was introduced from China and the use of teapots became common. Until this time, dissolving powdered cakes of tea had been the norm. As tea gained popularity in Japan, and as "Tea Tournaments" and tea parties came to consume the life of the aristocracy and those who enjoyed excess, tea's original Zen meaning became corrupted. It was not until Ikkyu, Shuko and Rikkyu, three Zen priests in the 15th and 16th century who established schools of tea, did tea reassociate itself with Zen. From that point on, tea service evolved into an elaborate ceremony in the Japanese Chanoyu and became so popular that a distinct architectural style known as Chaseki developed to adorn the many tea houses in Japan. While tea use was frequent in both Japan and China, information concerning this unknown beverage began to filter back to Europe in the early 17th century. Earlier caravan leaders had mentioned it, but were unclear as to its specific qualities. The first European to personally encounter tea and write about it was the Portuguese Jesuit Father Jasper de Cruz in 1560. In the early 17th century, the Europeans beginning with the Portuguese and Dutch sought to trade for tea with China. The Portuguese developed a trade route by which they shipped their tea to Lisbon, and then Dutch ships transported it to France, Holland, and the Baltic countries. When the Dutch and Portuguese trading alliance dissolved, Holland entered into the trading scene with China full force. The Chinese however were very reluctant trading partners. Needing nothing from the West, except precious metals (silver and gold) and copper, China's trading partners, found it often difficult to render payment to the Chinese. So successful were the Chinese in maintaining European ignorance of matters concerning tea that it was only in the 19th century that their customers learned that black and green tea came from the same plant. The largest of their customers was the British East India Company, which from the 1660s onward carried huge amounts of tea from Canton to Britain. Frustrated over the trade arrangements, the Company sought to grow its own tea in India. Sending botanists and individuals in disguise, the company was determined to learn the secrets of tea. It was not until 1848 however, when Robert Fortune, entering China posing as a Chinese merchant and acting as an agent for the Tea Committee of the British East India Company learned the many mysteries involved in tea making. Now equipped with the tea secrets, the Company began to grow tea in India and the great plantations of British India were born. Nonetheless, because China continued to supply most of the world's tea, trading partners sought other means of payments besides precious metals. Cotton from Bengal interested the Chinese as did poppies from Turkey, and the British East India Company entered the opium business. Despite the objections from the Imperial government, much of Chinese society demanded opium, which the British East India Company was more than willing to provide. Going to war in an attempt to cease the importation of opium, the Chinese fought the British in the Opium wars, but were unsuccessful. Britain won, Hong Kong was ceded to the British and all treaty ports were opened. 
Imperial Russia attempting to engage China and Japan in trade at the same time as the East Indian Company. The Russian interest in tea began as early as 1618 when the Chinese embassy in Moscow presented several chests of tea to Czar Alexis. By 1689 the Trade Treaty of Newchinsk established a common border between Russia and China, allowing caravans to then cross back and forth freely. The average caravan consisted of 200 to 300 camels. As a result of such factors, the cost of tea was initially prohibitive and available only to the wealthy. By the time Catherine the Great died (1796), the price had dropped some, and tea was spreading throughout Russian society. Tea was ideally suited to Russian life: hearty, warm, and sustaining. The Russians, adapted the Mongolian firepot to their own purposes and created the charcoal fuelled samovar which boiled water in its tank and furnished the heat to make tea.With the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1900, the overland caravans were abandoned. Although the Revolution intervened in the flow of the Russian society, tea remained throughout a staple. Tea (along with vodka) is the national drink of the Russians today When tea finally arrived in Europe, Rembrandt was only six years old. Because of the success of the Dutch navy in the Pacific, tea first became very fashionable in the Netherlands among the wealthy. This was due in part to the high cost of the tea (over $100 per pound) which immediately made it the domain of the upper classes. Slowly, as the amount of tea imported increased, the price fell as the volume of sale expanded. Initially available to the public in apothecaries along with such rare and new spices as ginger and sugar, by 1675 it was available in common food shops throughout Holland. As the consumption of tea increased dramatically in Dutch society, doctors and university authorities argued back and forth as to the negative and/or positive benefits of tea. Known as "tea heretics", the public largely ignored the scholarly debate and continued to enjoy their new beverage though the controversy lasted from 1635 to roughly 1657. Throughout this period France and Holland led Europe in the use of tea. Served in the afternoon, it would become the British style, mixed with sugar and sometimes saffron. As afternoon tea in the home became increasingly popular, special rooms in Dutch homes were developed to accommodate the new habit. As the craze for things oriental swept Europe, tea became part of the way of life. The social critic Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, the Marquise de Seven makes the first mention in 1680 of adding milk to tea. During the same period, Dutch inns provided the first restaurant service of tea. Tavern owners would furnish guests with a portable tea set complete with a heating unit. The independent Dutchman would then prepare tea for himself and his friends outside in the tavern's garden. Tea remained popular in France for only about fifty years, being replaced by a stronger preference for wine, chocolate, and exotic coffees. 
Great Britain was the last of the three great sea-faring nations to break into the Chinese and East Indian trade routes. This was due in part to the unsteady ascension to the throne of the Stuarts and the Cromwellian Civil War. The first samples of tea reached England between 1652 and 1654. By the 1710s afternoon tea had become an important convivial occasion for women who were discouraged from drinking alcohol socially. Eighteenth century Britain saw the rise of tea gardens where tea, snakcs and entertainment could be enjoyed. Tea quickly proved popular enough to replace ale as the national drink of England. Tea mania swept across England as it had earlier spread throughout France and Holland. Tea importation rose from 40,000 pounds in 1699 to an annual average of 240,000 pounds by 1708. Tea was drunk by all levels of society As in Holland, it was the nobility that provided the necessary stamp of approval and so insured its acceptance. King Charles II had married, while in exile, the Portuguese Infanta Catherine de Braganza (1662). Charles himself had grown up in the Dutch capital. As a result, both he and his Portuguese bride were confirmed tea drinkers. When the monarchy was re-established, the two rulers brought this foreign tea tradition to England with them. 
By 1650 the Dutch were actively involved in trade throughout the Western world. Peter Stuyvesant brought the first tea to America to the colonists in the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (later re-named New York by the English). Settlers here were confirmed tea drinkers. And indeed, on acquiring the colony, the English found that the small settlement consumed more tea at that time then all of England put together. As with most, tea was green and often mixed with sugar, fruits and liquors to make an alcoholic punch. The legendary Boston and Charleston tea parties sprang from the British tax on tea. The result was a series of civil disorders in which shiploads of tea were destoryed. However tea drinking did not cease, but rather came to America through American ships. Two great changes in American tea drinking came in the early 20th century. In 1908, Thomas Sullivan, in order to reduce shipping weight began to package tea samples in silk bags instead of miniature tins. Some of his customers brewed the tea without taking it out of the bags and upon request, Sullivan produced more tea bags. The other innovation was iced tea, supposedly invented in 1904 by Richard Blechynden at the World's Fair. An English tea concessionarie who had been sent to the US to promote black tea, he poured the hot tea over ice and began to serve it cold in an attempt to beat the sweltering heat. In modern times, tea is one of the world's least expensive beverages which also accounts for the fact that is it one of the most commonly used beverages. References Weinberg, Bennett, Bonnie Bealer. 2001. The World of Caffeine. New York: Routledge Kiple, Kenneth & Kriemhild Ornelas. 2000. The Cambridge World History of Food. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press |
