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ABSTRACT |
Production of tea in China, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Indonesia,
Russian Federation, and Japan is discussed.
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CHINA
Origin of Tea in China
The discovery and origin of tea
and tea drinking are generally ascribed to China. (1). Its legendary
history dates back to the year 2737 B.C. In
the account of the "Herbal Canon of Shen Nong," the Chinese Emperor
Shen Nong claimed that tea was able to detoxify 72 kinds of poisons
(2). It is stated in an ancient Chinese document published in 347
A.D. (3) that people living in southwest China
used teas for paying tribute to Chinese emperors as early as 1066
B.C. The poetic work "Er Ya," describing
the ecology of tea trees and tea drinking, was published in 130
B.C. (4) In this era, tea was used as
medicine as well as for entertaining guests. The antiquity of tea is
also evident in the essay "Tong Yue" published in 59
B.C. (5), in which there is evidence of the making and
sale of tea, as well as the establishment of schools during the
second century to instruct people on how to grow and drink tea. The
existence of tea markets in 130 B.C. is
also documented in a recent publication.(6). It is clear that China
enjoyed a flourishing tea industry centuries before the Christian
ear. Recently excavated Western Han Tombs of the second century
B.C. , situated in the Hunnan Province of
China, revealed that tea was one of the items included in the list
of burial objects (7).
Records indicate that tea
production and tea drinking were restricted to southwest China until
about the fifth century B.C. (8). At about
that time, China entered its "Wamng States Period," and this led to
a steady movement of pobulations across the country. As a result of
this migration, tea was spread to other regions of China, see Figure
III. 1. During the third century B.C. , the
custom of tea drinking was intoduced to northwest China and
Mongolia. By the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, 618-907
A.D., tea had become one of the
principal goods of trade in the Tu Lu Fan Basin. The use of tea was
increased by the spread of Buddhism in China and by the edict of the
Imperial Court that tea should replace the use of wine. As a result,
tea became a staple commodity, second only to salt. It was during
this period, 780 A.D., that Lu Yu published
the book "Tea Classics" (9), in wich he gave a comprehensive
introduction to the origin, variety, cultivation, processing,
storage of tea, and drinking customs; described the ecology of tea
trees; and extolled the virtues of tea drinking.
By the time of the Song
Dynasty, 960-1271 A.D. the major tea
plantations in China extended to the southeast, and people were
offering tea astribute in place of grain and money. During the Ming
Dynasty, 1368-1644 A.D., harsh laws, including
death penalty, were imposed on illegal business practices in the
sale of tea. In 1397 A.D. Ouyang Lun, the
son-in-law of the first emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang) of the Ming Dynasty,
was sentenced to death for demanding exorbitant prices for the sale
of his illegally acquired hoard of tea (10). It was in this ear that
the tea-house barter system became popular because fine horses
required by the army were not available in inland China. It was
reported that in the year 1398 A.D. , 250,000
kilograms (kg) of tea were bartered ofr 13,584 horses. This
tea-house barter trade prevailed for several generations and was
instrumental in spreading the popularity of tea. After the Ming
Dynasty, tea became the national drink in China. In fact, tea became
a necessity of life, equal to fuel, rice, oil, and salt. People
would go without rice for three days but would not go without tea
for a single cay.
Spread of Tea to Other Countries
The spread of
tea from China to other parts of the world, see Figure III. 1, is
said to have commenced as early as 221 B.C. with the migration of
minority nationalities from China to Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and
Thailand. These migrations were the result of incessant internal
wars which prevailed at that time. Although these migration occured
many centures ago, the methods of processing used in some of the
mountainous areas of these countries today are similar to those
employed in ancient China, such as the addition of condiments during
the steaming of tea leaves and the use of tea as food dishes and
medicines (11).
During the fifth
century A.D., China had already a
well-established tea trade with Turkey. Many foreign buyers,
especially from Iran, had established trading posts in Luoyang. In
the middle of the sixth century A.D.,
thousands of Tujue-whose territory once extended across Eurasia from
Baikal Lake in the north to the Caspian Sea in the west and was
later under the jurisdiction of the Tang Dynasty-entered China each
year to trade in tea. In this era, China had begun communication
with Rome, Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Korea, and Japan;
and she enjoyed a flourishing barter trade, with tea as one of the
principal barter items. It was at this time that trade on the famed
Silk Road prospered. The opening of sea lanes led to further
expansion of trade with China. In approximately the seventh century
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