Periods in the History of Tea

Tea 茶

·  Tea was called “Tu” in the Chinese ancient classic Shi Jing (The book of Songs).

·  During the Han dynasty, the word “tu” took on a new pronunciation, 'cha', in addition to its old pronunciation 'tu'.

Periods in the history of tea

·  From prehistoric time to Spring and Autum Period (221 BC) Tu was used as sacrifice for ceremony.

·  According to Chinese historical record, ca 1000 BC, there were already tea farm in Sichuan and Yunnan.

·  From end of Spring and Autumn Period to early Western Han dynasty, Tu was used as vegetable food on table.

·  Xia Zhong’s Treatise on Food: “Since Jin dynasty, the people of Wu (now suzhou city) cooked tea leaves as food, and called it tea broth”.

·  From the beginning of Western Han to middle Western Han, Tu was used as medicine.

·  From the late Western Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdom Period, tea was imperial beverage.

·  From the Western Jin dynasty to Sui dynasty, the use of tea as beverage spread in the Chinese population.

·  From the Tang period onward, tea became one of the seven essentials of daily life.

·  During the Southern Song Dynasty a Japanese monk明菴栄西 Eisai came to to study Zen Buddhism (1168 AD); when he returned home in 1193 AD , he brought tea from China to Japan, planted it and wrote the first Japanese book on Drinking Tea for Health. This was the beginning of tea cultivation and tea culture in Japan. From then on, the history of tea in Japan took their own way.

·  In the Song Dynasty, tea was a major export good, through the Silk Road on land and Silk Road on the sea, tea spread to Arab countries and Africa.

·  Marco Polo mentioned tea in his travel dialogue.

Types of Chinese Tea

Chinese tea may be classified into five types of teas according to the different methods by which it is processed.

Green tea

Green tea is the variety which keeps the original color of the tea leaves without fermentation during processing. This category consists mainly of Longjing tea of Zhejiang Province, Maofeng of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province and Biluochun produced in Jiangsu.

Black tea

Black tea, known as "red tea" (hong cha-) in China, is the category which is fermented before baking; it is a later variety developed on the basis of the green tea. The best brands of black tea are Qihong of Anhui , Dianhong of Yunnan, Suhong of Jiangsu, Chuanhong of Sichuan and Huhong of Hunan.

Wulong tea

This represents a variety half way between the green and the black teas, being made after partial fermentation. It is a specialty from the provinces on China's southeast coast: Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.

Compressed tea

This is the kind of tea which is compressed and hardened into a certain shape. It is good for transport and storage and is mainly supplied to the ethnic minorities living in the border areas of the country. As compressed tea is black in color in its commercial form, so it is also known in China as "black tea". Most of the compressed tea is in the form of bricks; it is, therefore, generally called "brick tea", though it is sometimes also in the form of cakes and bowls. It is mainly produced in Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

Scented tea

This kind of tea is made by mixing fragrant flowers in the tea leaves in the course of processing. The flowers commonly used for this purpose are jasmine and magnolia among others. Jasmine tea is a well-known favorite with the northerners of China and with a growing number of foreigners.

Website:

http://www.chinavista.com/experience/tea/tea.html

http://www.index-china-food.com/tea-culture.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea_in_China

1