Tea: More Than Just A Drink

This originally appeared as a post on 8/23/10.

Drama and danger can come from the most unexpected things. Take tea, for instance. Most Americans are used to seeing it in the form of little packets with a handy string attached. To put “most” in perspective (because I dislike making vague claims without real numbers attached), TeaUsa notes that “In 2009, over 65% of the tea brewed in the United States was prepared using tea bags.” TeaConnexions states that “Five out of six North Americans drink tea; the average North American consumes one cup a day.”

Out of all those folks kicking back with hot or cold tea drinks, how many stop to think about the history of tea? I’m guessing not too many, and that’s a shame, especially for writers. Tea is one of those “common” drinks that crop up in stories, like mead and wine, without much consideration over where it came from or what is involved in its production. Even a brief overview, however, shows that it’s much more than a convenient beverage for your characters to politely sip as they talk to each other. Tom Standage, in “A History of The World in 6 Glasses”, says: “The story of tea is the story of imperialism, industrialization, and world domination, one cup at a time.”

That sounds a lot more dramatic than picking a Lipton’s box off the shelf, and it is. A Chinese legend claims that an emperor discovered the marvels of tea (of course), but Standage notes that as royalty was given credit for any good ideas back then, that probably isn’t quite how it happened. More likely, he says, tea leaves were originally chewed, or chopped up and added to gruels and healing salves. Giving attribution to a divine or royal source (which generally also passed as divine) for a fantastic discovery is a common device in myth and legend. Unless there’s a god involved, ordinary people don’t usually get called out as famous inventors until much later in history.

Eventually, tea became popular enough that books were written about how to prepare and store it, and tea was cultivated rather than taken from bushes growing in the wild. As with alcohol, it wasn’t just the taste that made it a good thing to keep on hand. Standage notes: “Modern research has found that the phenolics (tannic acid) in tea can kill the bacteria that cause cholera, typhoid, and dysentery . . . . It was, in effect, an efficient and convenient water-purification technology that dramatically reduced the prevalence of waterborne diseases, reducing infant mortality and increasing longevity.”

Mind you, that only holds true for real tea, not herbal teas; “real” tea being Camellia sinensis, a bush with three distinct varietals: China, Assam, and Java. Each varietal has strikingly different preferences: China grows on high, cool mountainsides, Assam in jungles, and Java, combining the other two, flourishes in mountainous jungles. The type of tea the different varietals are best used for is also distinct. According to “The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide“:

“[The] Assam bush yields some of the finest black tea produced. But the Assam bush has yet to produce a world-class green tea or oolong.”

All tea, whether green, white, or black, starts out with the same leaf. The trick is in how it’s prepared. Back to “The Story of Tea”:

“In the eighteenth century early English tea planters did not understand that all styles of tea–green, black, and later oolong and white–could be manufactured from the same leaf. The Chinese, who had figured this all out, held the secret for a long time.”

Now we’re getting into the intrigue. That’s the type of secret merchants risk their lives and fortunes to get a hold of. And in fact, the only reason we drink tea in such volume today is because of an act of early industrial espionage: in 1848, the English sent a spy named Robert Fortune to Fujian Province. Fortune not only charmed the secret of making green tea out of the locals, but convinced over eighty tea specialists to come home with him.

Going a little further back in time, we find a much uglier story. From “The Story of Tea”:

“In 1776 the English intentionally began to create a market in China for opium, simply and ruthlessly exchanging one addiction for another: the Chinese became as hooked on opium as the British were on tea. . . ./Money from the sale of opium in China began to flow back into depleted English coffers, offsetting the money that was continually draining out to purchase tea.”

Chinese attempts to break the country out of the opium addiction literally led to war (the Opium Wars of 1839-1842); not the first time tea had been the root cause of a fight, and it wouldn’t be the last. (On the other hand, the American Revolution wasn’t just about a tax on tea–there was a lot more to it than that!)

There’s much more to say about the complex history of tea, far more than I have room for here. Hopefully I’ve given you something to think about, and an interest in developing this aspect of your fictional world a little more thoroughly. I will also more than likely revisit this topic, so check back soon!

In the meanwhile, here are a few resources worth checking out:

“A History of the World in 6 Glasses“, Tom Standage (Walker & Company, 2005)

“The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide“, Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss (Ten Speed Press, 2007)

TeaUSA: http://www.teausa.org

A neat article from an old Victorian-era girl’s magazine on “The Right Way of Making Tea and Coffee” may be found here.

Until next time: keep writing–just because you can!