The history of tea - Shunan Teng — Transcript

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1. 0:07During a long day spent roaming the forest in search of edible grains and herbs,
2. 0:11the weary divine farmer Shennong accidentally poisoned himself 72 times.
3. 0:16But before the poisons could end his life,
4. 0:19a leaf drifted into his mouth.
5. 0:21He chewed on it and it revived him,
6. 0:24and that is how we discovered tea.
7. 0:26Or so an ancient legend goes at least.
8. 0:29Tea doesn't actually cure poisonings,
9. 0:31but the story of Shennong,
10. 0:33the mythical Chinese inventor of agriculture,
11. 0:35highlights tea's importance to ancient China.
12. 0:38Archaeological evidence suggests tea was first cultivated there
13. 0:41as early as 6,000 years ago,
14. 0:44or 1,500 years before the pharaohs built the Great Pyramids of Giza.
15. 0:48That original Chinese tea plant
16. 0:50is the same type that's grown around the world today,
17. 0:52yet it was originally consumed very differently.
18. 0:55It was eaten as a vegetable or cooked with grain porridge.
19. 0:59Tea only shifted from food to drink 1,500 years ago
20. 1:02when people realized that a combination of heat and moisture
21. 1:06could create a complex and varied taste out of the leafy green.
22. 1:10After hundreds of years of variations to the preparation method,
23. 1:14the standard became to heat tea,
24. 1:16pack it into portable cakes,
25. 1:17grind it into powder,
26. 1:19mix with hot water,
27. 1:21and create a beverage called muo cha, or matcha.
28. 1:25Matcha became so popular that a distinct Chinese tea culture emerged.
29. 1:30Tea was the subject of books and poetry,
30. 1:32the favorite drink of emperors,
31. 1:33and a medium for artists.
32. 1:35They would draw extravagant pictures in the foam of the tea,
33. 1:38very much like the espresso art you might see in coffee shops today.
34. 1:42In the 9th century during the Tang Dynasty,
35. 1:45a Japanese monk brought the first tea plant to Japan.
36. 1:49The Japanese eventually developed their own unique rituals around tea,
37. 1:53leading to the creation of the Japanese tea ceremony.
38. 1:56And in the 14th century during the Ming Dynasty,
39. 1:59the Chinese emperor shifted the standard
40. 2:01from tea pressed into cakes to loose leaf tea.
41. 2:04At that point, China still held a virtual monopoly on the world's tea trees,
42. 2:08making tea one of three essential Chinese export goods,
43. 2:12along with porcelain and silk.
44. 2:14This gave China a great deal of power and economic influence
45. 2:17as tea drinking spread around the world.
46. 2:20That spread began in earnest around the early 1600s
47. 2:23when Dutch traders brought tea to Europe in large quantities.
48. 2:27Many credit Queen Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese noble woman,
49. 2:30for making tea popular with the English aristocracy
50. 2:33when she married King Charles II in 1661.
51. 2:37At the time, Great Britain was in the midst of expanding its colonial influence
52. 2:41and becoming the new dominant world power.
53. 2:44And as Great Britain grew, interest in tea spread around the world.
54. 2:48By 1700, tea in Europe sold for ten times the price of coffee
55. 2:53and the plant was still only grown in China.
56. 2:56The tea trade was so lucrative
57. 2:57that the world's fastest sailboat, the clipper ship,
58. 3:00was born out of intense competition between Western trading companies.
59. 3:04All were racing to bring their tea back to Europe first
60. 3:07to maximize their profits.
61. 3:09At first, Britain paid for all this Chinese tea with silver.
62. 3:13When that proved too expensive,
63. 3:15they suggested trading tea for another substance, opium.
64. 3:19This triggered a public health problem within China
65. 3:22as people became addicted to the drug.
66. 3:24Then in 1839, a Chinese official ordered his men
67. 3:28to destroy massive British shipments of opium
68. 3:30as a statement against Britain's influence over China.
69. 3:33This act triggered the First Opium War between the two nations.
70. 3:37Fighting raged up and down the Chinese coast until 1842
71. 3:41when the defeated Qing Dynasty ceded the port of Hong Kong to the British
72. 3:45and resumed trading on unfavorable terms.
73. 3:48The war weakened China's global standing for over a century.
74. 3:52The British East India company also wanted to be able to grow tea themselves
75. 3:56and further control the market.
76. 3:58So they commissioned botanist Robert Fortune
77. 4:01to steal tea from China in a covert operation.
78. 4:05He disguised himself and took a perilous journey
79. 4:07through China's mountainous tea regions,
80. 4:09eventually smuggling tea trees and experienced tea workers
81. 4:12into Darjeeling, India.
82. 4:14From there, the plant spread further still,
83. 4:17helping drive tea's rapid growth as an everyday commodity.
84. 4:21Today, tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water,
85. 4:25and from sugary Turkish Rize tea,
86. 4:27to salty Tibetan butter tea,
87. 4:29there are almost as many ways of preparing the beverage
88. 4:32as there are cultures on the globe.