3,000-Year-Old History Of Tea: World’s Second Most-Consumed Drink After Clean Water

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - According to the opinion of the majority of experts on the subject, the homeland of tea is China.

A painting of ancient Chinese playing a competitive game based on tea drinking in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Image credit: people.cn

Already three thousand years ago, and perhaps much earlier, the local population used tea leaves to prepare a medicament to alleviate stomach problems and increase concentration.

The habit of drinking tea for pleasure has been developing very slowly over many centuries.

According to legend, it all started in China around 2737 BC. One day, the Chinese emperor – Shennong (Shen Nung), an herbalist and scholar who usually drank only boiled water, rested under a wild tea tree.

Suddenly, a rush of wind caused several leaves to fall from the tree into his pitcher with water. Later, after taking the drink into his mouth, he felt an entirely new taste that surprised and charmed him.

Iranians usually drink tea with rock candy and in glass cups. Image credit: Persian Food Tours  - CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED

The Chinese kept their secret for a long time. The first written mention of this plant dates back to the third century BC, and for many years, tea, made from the leaves of wild tea trees, was used only as a medicine and strengthening agent.

Hot tea promoters were Buddhist monks who discovered that tea helped them much during long hours of meditation. By the second century BC, Buddhist monks had found tea' to have stimulating properties and contributed to its cultivation and development.

During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), monks from Korea and Japan started to visit Buddhist monasteries in China more and more often. Returning to their homelands after many years of study, the monks took with them seeds of plants to undertake the first attempts to grow a tea bush in the secluded gardens.

They also introduced the custom of drinking tea to the religious ceremony. In the twelfth century, in Japan, there was a ritual in honor of the Buddha and the legendary founder of the Zen sect, Bodhidharma, known in Japan as Daruma.

Azerbaijani tea culture. Image credit: Investigation11111 - CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED

A few centuries later, tea became a popular and widely available drink. The art of preparing and drinking tea became a popular ritual, and teahouses began to appear.

In the mid-8th century, tea drinking became widely popular during the Tang Dynasty, and around 803 AD, monk Dengyo Daishi took the first seeds of a tea plant to Japan.

Soon, the reputation of this prestigious beverage drink spread to Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Tibet. Through the centuries, various techniques for drying and processing tea and several different forms of tea were developed.

Europeans had already heard about tea from missionaries returning from the Far East. However, the Dutch were the first to bring it to Europe. The Dutch company East India Co. imported the prestigious tea beverage from China to Europe in 1609.

The ceremony of drinking tea as a new exotic drink spread in England, where it came to Thomas Garraway, a merchant and a shop owner in London). Initially, the privilege of consuming this exotic drink was only limited to very wealthy people - the royal family and aristocracy.

A few decades later, a marvelous tea beverage reached the rest of Europe, and elegant, beautifully decorated accessories and the opening of tearooms appeared across the continent.

At the same time, tea by land was brought to Russia as a gift from the Emperor of China for Tsar Nicholas Romanov. 

Image credit: Samovary.ru

The Russian 'Samovar '("samovar" is "self-boiling") is the Russian tea machine, considered to be much better than other water-heating devices. In early times, the samovar was used not only for boiling water but also for boiling soup and 'sbiten' (hot honey & spice hot winter beverage. )

Soon, it appeared not only among the magnates; at the end of the 18th century, despite the still relatively high price, tea began to welcome guests at the tables of less affluent people.

Camel caravans packed with boxes filled with tea roamed the mountain regions, deserts, and steppes of Central Asia, southern Siberia, and Russia until the early twentieth century. Then, the situation changed for tea transport when the Trans-Siberian Railway was completed, and trade between China and Russia was revolutionized.

Written by – A. Sutherland  - AncientPages.com Senior Staff Writer

Updated on Nov 18, 2023

Copyright © AncientPages.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of AncientPages.com