Tea is the second-most popular beverage in the world (behind water). How much do you know about the history of this delicious drink?
Join me today for a discussion on the history of tea, from mysterious and mythical Chinese emperors to a Portuguese princess in London! At the same time, we’ll learn a lot of new and interesting words while testing your listening skills.
Listen Here!
Interactive Transcript!
You Can Now Read and Listen at the Same Time With an Interactive Transcript!
Vocabulary
- Beverage (Noun): A drink, especially one other than water; a liquid for drinking.
- Customers can choose from a wide variety of beverages, including coffee, tea, and fresh juices.
- Steep (Verb): To soak in a liquid, typically water, to extract flavours or to soften.
- The tea leaves need to steep in hot water for a few minutes.
- Infuse (Verb): To introduce flavours or qualities into a liquid by soaking or steeping.
- The chef decided to infuse the olive oil with herbs to enhance the taste of the salad dressing.
- Medicinal (Adjective): Having properties or qualities that are beneficial for health.
- Many traditional cultures believe in the medicinal properties of certain herbs and plants.
- Dynasty (Noun): A series of rulers from the same family.
- The Ming Dynasty is known for its cultural achievements and influence on Chinese art and literature.
- Blend (Noun): A mixture of different elements or substances.
- The chef created a unique spice blend.
- Oxidation (Noun): The chemical reaction that occurs when a substance reacts with oxygen, often causing a change in colour.
- The browning of an apple when exposed to air is a result of oxidation.
Introduction
As a British person, I drink a considerable quantity of tea every week. Tea is the national drink of the UK, and when I’m at home in England with my parents I’ll usually enjoy at least 5 cups of tea every day.
This will usually be English Breakfast Tea (a blend of black teas) served with a splash of milk.
While I no longer live in the UK, I do still drink a lot of English tea. My local department store sells PG Tips, a popular brand of British tea, so I have a regular supply.
I also drink a variety of other teas here in Japan – green teas, barley teas, jasmine and oolong teas, and herbal teas. A friend of mine from Taiwan recently gave me a few cases of high-quality Taiwanese tea, so I’ve also been enjoying that recently.
Tea is a big part of my life. It is something I enjoy drinking, whether it is a comforting cup of English breakfast tea in the morning or an interesting pot of Chinese green tea.
As a person who enjoys tea, I’m ashamed to say that until relatively recently I knew very little about its history.
Who was the first person to think of putting a leaf in boiling water, and then realised it tasted good? You could do this with hundreds of different leaves from various plants and it would taste bad, but somehow tea was discovered.
Today, I’d like to take a look at the history of tea.
We’ll discuss its early history in China and eventual spread around the world. We’ll look at how tea culture has changed, and how it became the national drink of England. And we’ll take a look at tea around the world today!
But first, there is a basic question I’d like to think about. What is tea?
What is Tea?
This is not necessarily an easy to answer question. There are many products out there which are not technically “tea”. Let’s take a deeper look.
Defining Tea
The Britannica encyclopaedia defines tea as a “beverage produced by steeping in freshly boiled water the young leaves and leaf buds of the tea plant.”
Those leaves and buds from the tea plant are also referred to as “tea.”
In other words, tea comes from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. This is an evergreen, sub-tropical plant, native to Asia but now grown globally. The different varieties of tea—including Black, Green, Oolong, White, and Pu’er—all originate from the leaves of this single “tea” plant.
Through different growing conditions, climates, and processing methods, it is possible to create a massive variety of tea from the single plant.
The tea plant thrives in loose, deep soil, preferably at higher altitudes and in sub-tropical climates.
Types of Tea
There are different types of tea. Now, I don’t mean beverages made from tea… but the tea leaves itself. Five of main types include…
Black Tea: Made from fully oxidized leaves, black tea boasts a bold and robust flavour profile, often accompanied by fruity or malty notes. Examples include Assam, Darjeeling, and Earl Grey.
Green Tea: Undergoing minimal oxidation, green tea maintains a light, grassy character with hints of vegetal notes.
Oolong Tea: Situated between black and green tea in terms of oxidation, oolong teas offer a wide range of flavours, from floral and creamy to fruity and earthy.
White Tea: Known for its minimal processing, white tea has a delicate and subtly sweet essence, often featuring natural floral notes.
Pu’erh Tea: Aged and fermented, Pu’erh teas, are available as raw (sheng) or ripe (shou), boast an earthy and rich profile that improves with time.
What is Not Tea?
On the other hand, there are lots of different products often called “tea” which are not made from the tea plant.
Tisanes, a French term meaning “herbal infusion,” include dried flowers, fruits, or herbs steeped in boiling water. Notable examples include chamomile and fruit teas.
While these are enjoyed globally, it’s essential to recognize that they are not true teas. In some countries, the term “tea” is legally reserved for the products of Camellia sinensis.
Herbal teas like chamomile and peppermint have been enjoyed for a long time. They were often used to treat illnesses and sicknesses.
Rooibos tea, or “red bush tea”, comes from South Africa and became popular during World War 2. Most of the world could no longer access Asian teas, so an alternative was searched for. Rooibos, a caffeine free plant, was a popular choice.
And Yerba Mate is another beverage that many of listeners in South America will be familiar with. This is an incredibly popular drink in places like Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, and is often referred to as tea despite not being related to the tea plant at all!
Origins of Tea
The Legend of Shen Nong
Now we know what “tea” is, let’s discuss the history of the plant and drink!
The earliest known references to tea drinking come from China.
According to legend, a mythical emperor who lived 4000 years ago, Emperor Shen Nong, was known for his habit of boiling water before drinking it to ensure its purity.
One day, while resting beneath a wild tea tree, a gentle breeze carried several leaves from the branches into the boiling water.
Shen Nong was intrigued by the aroma, the smell. Rather than throw the water away, the emperor decided to taste it, and inadvertently discovered the refreshing qualities of the beverage that we now know as tea.
The legend says that Emperor Shen Nong began to explore the medicinal properties of tea leaves. He apparently recognized its ability to alleviate illnesses and promote well-being. This was the start of China’s embrace of tea and the development of tea culture.
Now, this story is precisely that… a story!
We don’t know if there is any truth at all in the legend of tea. Shen Nong, for example, is a mythical emperor who is also considered to be a god-like figure.
As soon as he put the leaves in his mouth, they immediately saved him from poisoning. Shen Nong then named the leaves “Cha” meaning “examine”, which is still one of the common names for tea in China and around the world.
China and Tea
But what is the real history?
Tea plants are native to the southwest of China, including parts of Tibet, and also Northern India. It is possible that people living in these regions may have used the leaves of the tea plant in cooking, or chewed the leaves, but we do not know.
If we look at historical records, it certainly seems like China is the first place to use tea as both a medicine and an enjoyable beverage.
The Zhou dynasty, starting about 1000BC, is said to have drunk infusions of leaves which could have been tea. And we know for certain that the Han Dynasty, which existed about 2000 years ago, used teas as medicines.
During the Tang dynasty, so about 1500 years ago, people in China were drinking tea for pleasure and enjoyment at social occasions.
There is an early book called The Classic of Tea which was written around the year 760 and talks about how tea drinking was very common at that time. The book details how tea was grown and prepared, and also discusses things like tea ceremonies.
Another piece of evidence showing that tea was very popular at this time is that the Tang government started taxing tea!
Importantly, tea was quite different from what you imagine today. It was not served in convenient bags like in most western countries. And it usually wasn’t drunk in the loose-leaf form common in modern Chinese tea drinking.
Instead, tea was pressed into tightly packed blocks, then dried, and then ground into a fine powder. Hot water was added and the beverage drunk. We can actually still see this technique today. Japanese matcha tea, which is powdered green tea, is very popular around the world and based on the old Chinese customs from over 1000 years ago.
The first tea that would be widely recognisable to modern drinkers came during the Ming dynasty. Rather than powdered tea, they started steeping whole leaves of the plant in hot water. These leaves were dried and heated to stop them oxidising (reacting with the air).
Spread of Tea Around the World
While modern tea drinking may have started in China, it spread long ago and is now enjoyed around the world.
Around 1000 years ago, Japanese monks who had studied in China brought tea plants and seeds back home after they had finished their education. Tea plantations began to appear in isolated monasteries, but tea drinking didn’t become popular in Japan until the 13th century.
As I mentioned before, the most popular form of tea at that time in Japan was matcha – powdered green tea.
In the 17th century, the newer method of drying and rolling whole leaves of tea made its way to Japan. This eventually developed into sencha, one of the most popular forms of Japanese tea today.
China was also connected to central Asia and the Middle East by the famous “Silk Road.” Tea became one of the commodities sent along the trade route and was known by people in that region.
The Portuguese and Dutch, however, are probably responsible for tea spreading to Europe, Africa, and other parts of the world. In the 16th century, Portuguese traders and missionaries were living across Asia and brought back small amounts of tea on their travels.
By the early 17th century, the Dutch had taken over a lot of the trade in Asia and begun commercially shipping tea to Europe – stopping at various ports in Asia, India, and Africa on the way.
Tea if by Sea…
There is actually a really nice way to see if your country or culture got tea from trade through the Silk Road and directly from China, or if your country received tea through European traders. The phrase is “tea if by sea, cha if by land.”
If you look at almost every language, there are basically just two different ways to say tea. In mandarin Chinese, tea is called “cha”. This is the same in Japanese and Korean, as they received tea from early trade with China.
“Cha” was spread via the silk road. Although pronunciation might be different – chay, chai, shay – languages including Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Swahili, Turkish, and Russian base their word for tea off the Chinese word “cha”. And this means they most likely got tea from the land trade and the silk road.
Not all of China speaks the same language or dialect, however. In the province of Fujian, they speak the Min Nan dialect – also common in Taiwan and parts of Southeast Asia. In Min Nan, they don’t say “cha” they say “te”.
Fujian is a coastal region and was home to the main Dutch trading port out of China. In fact, the Dutch had major ports in both Fujian and Taiwan (which had recently become home to thousands of people from Fujian as the Dutch needed people to farm the island of Taiwan), so this “te” pronunciation became the word they would use for the product they shipped around the world.
They took it to their ports in Indonesia, giving the Javanese word “teh.” On the way to Europe, their ships stopped in Sri Lanka (te), and South and West Africa, meaning many languages in these regions use the term “te”. And eventually tea became the main word in Western European languages including English.
There is a prominent exception, however. The Portuguese, who had traded with Asia before the Dutch, had their base in Macao not Fujian – so they use the “cha” pronunciation.
Tea in the UK
As a British person, I feel like I should also mention how tea became the national drink of the UK.
Compared to the rest of Europe, Britain was actually a little slow to join the culture of tea drinking. Coffee houses were common in London, but tea was still little known in the 16th century.
However, when King Charles II married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, things changed. She was a tea addict, someone who loved drinking tea, and she brought this culture to the wealthy upper class of England.
Tea remained incredibly expensive and was taxed at a very high level. This meant it could only be enjoyed by the wealthiest Britons.
While China had always been home to most of the world’s tea farms and plantations, the East India Company (a British trading company) decided to start growing tea themselves in India. In the 1850s, the British government took over control of India from the East India company – and the trade in tea became much easier and more affordable.
Once tea was being grown in the British Empire, it quickly became the national drink of England!
During the industrial revolution, companies began offering “tea breaks” to workers. At the other end of the social spectrum, Anna the Duchess of Bedfordshire is credited with starting the tradition of Afternoon Tea!
Tea around the World!
Let’s end this episode with a brief description of some of the different ways of enjoying tea around the world!
Chinese Gong Fu Tea:
Gongfu tea, or kung fu tea, literally means “making tea with skill” and is a traditional way of preparing the drink in China. It involves the brewing of tea, usually in small teapots, emphasizing multiple short infusions to bring out the nuanced flavours of the leaves.
Compared to mass-produced teas, this tradition uses larger amounts of higher quality tea, that is steeped in water for a much shorter time. The same tea can be steeped in water multiple times before the flavour becomes too weak.
Taiwanese Bubble Tea:
Taiwan’s contribution to the global tea scene is the delightful bubble tea. Originating on the streets of Taipei, bubble tea combines tea, milk, and chewy tapioca pearls. It is drunk through an oversized straw and has become a global phenomenon.
When I lived in Taiwan, I definitely enjoyed a lot of bubble tea (however, most often I would order it without the bubbles)!
Japanese Matcha:
I’ve talked about the Japanese matcha tea a few times already in this episode. The preparation and drinking of matcha is almost like a ritual. Matcha is made from green-tea leaves grown away from sunlight in the shade. It is then ground into a powder and whisked with hot water into a froth.
English Breakfast Tea:
English breakfast tea takes an important role in many British people’s daily lives. It is a black tea blend, often accompanied by milk and sugar. Whether enjoyed with scones and clotted cream or as a comforting start to the day, English breakfast tea is something common across the country.
Masala Chai:
Masala Chai is a flavourful blend of black tea infused with spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, and is a staple across parts of Asia including India. Served hot and often sweetened with milk and sugar, masala chai is really delicious.
Tibetan Butter Tea:
One type of tea I’ve never tried but has always intrigued me is Tibetan butter tea. Butter tea is a unique concoction of strong tea, yak butter (butter made from the milk of a yak), salt, and occasionally milk. It is traditionally prepared in churns and poured into bowls, and I want to know how it tastes!
Final Thought
After listening to today’s episode, hopefully you know a little more about tea.
We started by discussing the defintion of tea. We looked at where it comes from and the differences between real teas and infusions.
We discussed the ancient legends about the origins of tea and its early popularity in China. We talked about how tea spread around the world, to Japan and Korea, to the Middle East, and Europe. And I mentioned how it became the British national drink.
And I ended with a brief introduction of a few famous versions of tea around the world.
Personally, I love to start my day with a nice cup of English breakfast tea. I also love to drink some tasty and skilfully made Chinese Gong Fu style tea, and I have a lot of nostalgia about Taiwanese bubble tea.
How about you? Do you like tea? How do you like to drink tea?
Extended Vocabulary List
Become a Patreon Subscriber to Access the Extended Vocabulary List!
Vocabulary Games and Activities!
Learn and practice vocabulary from this Thinking in English episode.
Practice using 5 different study games and activities – including writing, listening, and memorisation techniques!
Flashcards
Matching Game
Learning Game
Test Yourself
Listening and Spelling
Do you want to Think in English?
I’m so excited that you found my blog and podcast!! If you don’t want to miss an article or an episode, you can subscribe to my page!
[…] a regular listener to the Thinking in English podcast, then you will have heard Tom talking about the history of tea. In the podcast, Tom talks about tea, its history, and traditions, but also about his own attitudes […]
I live in the North-West of Germany, in the area Ostfriesland. Here is drinking tea especially „Ostfriesentee“ common. It is a mixture of several black tea sorts. One drink the tea with rock candy and cream. Everybody who live here love this tea and drink a lot of this. Ostfriesland is the area where the most tea is drinkink in Germany.
Best regards Conny
Thank you for another interesting episode! Even though I live in Japan, my favourite tea is proper English breakfast tea which is quite difficult to find here. I miss tea bags which are sold in supermarkets in London. It is surprising that a lot of western people love Japanese matcha these days.
I buy PGTips in my local Donki! But one of the big differences is water – it always takes me a while to get used to English tea made with Japanese water.
Hi, Tom!
Thank you for your insteristing episodes!
Here in northeast of Brazil, I like to drink a cold and blended tea, with toasted mate with lemom tea. And in the Brazil’s south(and neighborhood), is used a tipical hot tea called chimarrão, a dry and ground mate, served in typical and unique utensils.
For instance, let me leave a observation:
When you say:
“…This is an evergreen, sub-tropical plant, native to Asia but now grown globally.”
Sounds strange to me “native to”, to me would be “native from”.
Hi Flávio! The correct grammar in this case is “native to”.
With “native” you generally have 2 options. “Native to…” or “native of…”
When you are talking about an object or an animal in English, “native” is used as an adjective and often accompanied by the preposition “to”.
Here is an example from Collins dictionary – “Many of the plants are native to Brazil.” https://www.collinsdictionary.com/sentences/english/native
When referring to people, we often use native as a noun in the form “a native of…” – as in “she is a native of California.”
I can’t think of any situations when we would use “native from” – it also sounds incorrect!