Tea Drinking During The Late Ming Period

“For all the Tea in China -How England Stole the World 's Favorite Drink and Changed History

Saberi, H. (2010). Tea Comes to the West. In Tea:A Global History. [Adobe Digital Editions Version]. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/

Tea: Tea began as a luxury drink, and then trickled down to become the beverage of the working man. The story of tea is the story of imperialism, industrialization, and world domination. According to Chinese tradition, the first cup of tea was brewed by the emperor Shen Nung. Before tea was a beverage, it was used for medicinal purposes and foodstuff. Tea became a daily drink in China around the third century A.D. As the Industrial Revolution of 18th and 19th centuries gained steam, tea provided some of the fuel. Factory workers stayed alert during long, monotonous shifts thanks to welcome tea breaks. The beverage also had unintended health benefits for rapidly growing urban areas. Chewing leaves and rubbing them on wounds were ways that tea was used for medicinal purposes.

The Tea that reach America from china inspired new addictions, new trade connections and new forms of luxury, new social critiques and simmering provincial inferiority. Many caffeinated drinks had come before the tea however this was a new drink to the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, this drink did not come without its own problems (50).

The origins of tea are rooted in China (Food Timeline). According to legend, the beneficial properties of tea were first discovered by the Emperor Shen Nung in the year 2737 B.C. He drank only boiled water for hygienic purposes, and one day while he drank a breeze rustled the branches of a tree and a few leaves fell into his cup. Creating the first cup of tea. It is challenging to know whether or not the emperor was real or just a part of the spiritual and cultural development of ancient China. China was not unified as an empire until the third century, so it is unlikely emperors existed back then. One thing that is known is that tea was popular in China thousands of years ago. The first written reference of tea is in the third century B.C. A famous surgeon recommended the beverage to patients to increase concentration and alertness. Tea was first written as “tu” in ancient texts. This caused a good deal of confusion because the same Chinese character was used for both tea and Chinese sow thistles. Between 206 B.C. and A.D. 220 a Han Dynasty emperor ruled that when referring to tea, the characters should be pronounced as “cha”. From here on, tracing tea’s history became easier because tea acquired its own individual character (Food Timeline).

Cha Jing, Written by Lu Yu in the Tang dynasty, is widely recognized as the world 's first scientific work about tea production.

It also served as a food stuff, until it became a drink. According to Monks ( Buddhist) tea help with meditation, so it play an important part in Buddhism. Tea was used socially, people in both China and Japan, also in England would gather together for tea parties. While at these tea parties, people would have enjoy a cup of tea which helped the mind to stimulate intellectual conversations and debates. People drank a lot of tea because it help prevent waterborne disease. It served as a the main trade for China and Japan.

Tea, known to Asia as a luxury used for medicinal purposes, became a way of life for Europeans. It served as a huge asset towards the growth of Europe and Britain’s status as a world power.

Tea, as a popular commodity good in late-Ming China, experienced the farming in tea plantations, picking through tea farmer’s hands, stir-frying in tea manufacturers’ houses, and then was bought and delivered by licensed merchants through the trade routes to tea markets. After it was sold, tea finally arrived at its destination, the places where tea would be consumed. Two types of space were mostly used by tea drinkers to enjoy their pleasure of tasting tea: tea houses (茶馆) and tea huts (茶寮). The tea house, which was originated in the Southern Song Dynasty and served for tea-drinkers from various backgrounds, continued developing in the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in urban areas; however, tea connoisseurs became more and more interested

Tea was declared the National Drink of England in 1784. The eighteenth century saw the transformation of tea as an everyday necessity for the poor and working class of the British society. To meet the domestic demand at home, the British East India Company imported great volumes of tea from China. The tea import increased from an estimated 64 tons in 1711 to 6800 tons in 1791. Even heavy import tax could not deter an increasingly expanding domestic market for the Chinese tea. As tea drinking had become obsession with the British society, consumption of tea replaced home-brewed beer, gin, milk and traditional infusions of indigenous plants. This great transformation in the consumption pattern of British society led to the commodification of

An “ancient legend in China, is that tea was discovered accidentally by the Emperor Shen Nong in 2737 B.C.E.” According to the website, www.mightyleaf.com “The emperor was boiling water under a tree and leaves fell into the pot,” and thus the legend of how drinking tea started. According to historical documents, China is the first culture to drink tea or to utilize it in religious or cultural ceremonies. The practice of sharing tea began among family members, neighbors, and friends as a social interaction. In an early Chinese dynasty, the Emperor Song Huizong wrote about the “problems that can degrade the flavor, such as using an inferior product or improperly processed leaf.” (Hinsch 77) Even poems penned in China discussed the growing and drinking of tea.

Carp stated that around the early 1580’s, Europeans adopted tea for the first time.Coffee and chocolate were also introduced to Europe around this time. These beverages did not make an impact right away because the taste was very bitter. The beverages started to “boom” once sugar was added. The plant, camelia sinensis, produces all pure tea. All the tea that Americans and Europeans consumed came from Chinese soil until the nineteenth. Ever since, India, has the most well-known varieties of tea.

Xing, Yue and Jian kilns produced valuable stoneware tea-bowls, but this phenomenon did not mean that famous tea-bowls were only restricted to ceramics. Furthermore, tea-bowls were not the only utensil associated with tea-drinking. There were tea wares, including tea-bowls, made with gold, silver, and other metallic material, which were also considered as finest during the Tang Dynasty; in few case, the archeologists also had found fine tea wares made with glass. However, the appreciation of stoneware in tea-drinking did not decline like other metal tea wares experienced after the fall of the Tang dynasty; however, the status had improved significantly in tea connoisseurs’ mind in later dynasties.

Knowing Chinese tea culture thoroughly is a wise way for people to explore the Chinese society and culture. As a traditional drink, it has been planted and consumed for over five thousands years. The climate of China is perfect for growing tea, which leads to large quantities and good quality of tea. According to the line diagram, “Dynamics of manufacture of tea in China, thousand tons” there were about 1,200 thousands tons of tea manufactured in 2008, which made China the biggest tea manufacture country in the world. As we can see, tea has a special position in Chinese society. Due to its popularity, Chinese tea gradually raises international interest, and leads China to be a more influential country in the

This text describes the making process of tea and Yang introduced this process to the target readers with the alienation strategy. This text uses