Tea Camellia sinensis, Camellia thea The earliest written reference to tea-drinking is to be found in a Chinese dictionary of AD350, although it is quite likely that the practice began much earlier than that. Some sources say that the tea plant was indigenous to southeast Asia and was brought to China and Japan by travelling Buddhist monks. However, if a popular legend it to be believed, it began much earlier than that, at around 3,000 years BC, when a Chinese emperor, Shen-Nung was sitting under a Camellia tree waiting for his servant to boil him some water. A leaf blew down from the tree and the emperor, on tasting the resulting brew, decided that he liked it, and Tchai or Tay, as it was called, was a popular drink in China from then on. India and Japan have startlingly similar legends to explain the introduction of tea where, respectively, Darma and Dharuma, during seven years of sleepless contemplation, grew tired. In the Indian version, Darma chewed some leaves from the Camellia and was instantly alert. In the more grisly Japanese version, Dharuma cut off his own eyelids, threw them to the ground, where they sprang up as tea plants which then revived him. Early methods of tea production involved making the dried and powdered leaves into a cake first, together with other flavouring ingredients, ready for use after rehydration. It was not until the 15th century, during the Ming dynasty, that the more familiar process to us, of steeping the leaves in hot water, was developed. The Dutch brought tea to Europe in around 1610 and Britain was introduced to it at a relatively late date, in 1657, by a London coffee house owner, Thomas Garway, who claimed that it made the body active and lusty and that it cured ‘gripping of the guts, cold, dropsies and scurvey’. Interestingly, Mr E.C. Dozey, quondam Examiner at the University of Calcutta during the 1930’s, mentions in his 1937 work, Darjeeling, Past and Present, that he managed to track down a reference to “tea pott” in the accounts of Bess Hardwicke, Countess of Shrewsbury in 1583 - almost three quarters of a century before the beverage itself made its appearance. To make up for this slow start, however, the enthusiastic English had adopted the brew as their ‘national drink’ by around the mid-18th century. By the 19th century, the Duchess of Bedford hit upon an idea to fill in the long gap between luncheon and supper with the new fashion of taking tea, and the marriage was well and truly cemented, and today, around 70% of the British public drink tea at least once a day. During the 18th century, the English East India Company held sway in the world trade in tea, playing a major role in the introduction of China and India teas into England and colonial America. According to Mr Dozey’s research, the company imported 1 million pounds of tea into Britain in 1720, retailing at 30 shillings per pound. Just five years later the figure had risen to five million pounds and kept on rising until, in 1773, the company held over 17 millions pounds (imperial measure) of tea in its warehouses. However, tea was still a very expensive commodity and the average Englishman spent as much as one third of his weekly wages in order to satisfy his thirst during this period. In 1773, British Parliament made matters even worse for the common man, passing the notorious Tea Act, raising heavy taxes even further, and granting permission to the East India Company to export their huge surpluses to America. This huge and sudden demand on them, for what they saw as “taxation without representation”, precipitated the famous ‘Boston Tea Party’ when 342 chests of tea were dumped into the harbour, leading ultimately to the American Revolution. Not surprisingly, the taxes were not popular on the domestic front, either and, despite being closer to the excise men, by the simple expedient of smuggling it in, managed to get away not paying duty on as much as two-thirds of the tea being drunk in Britain during that time. Originally China held the monopoly of the trade in tea with Europe and formed the most valuable part of the East India Company until its charter expired in 1813 and control of the trade passed back to the Crown. The directors of the company decided to source other supplies, shipping in plants from China to the Himalayas, the eastern frontiers and Nilgiri, blissfully unaware, according to Mr Dozey’s book, that the plant was already growing quite happily in Assam and other places in India and that the local population had been growing, manufacturing and drinking tea without any help whatsoever from the esteemed company! In 1904 there came a new development in tea drinking - as always almost unintentionally. One Richard Blechynden was promoting Indian tea at the St Louis World Fair and found that, due to the scorching weather, there seemed to be very little interest in his product. In a moment of inspiration, he started to pour the tea over ice cubes, inventing iced tea. The Cantonese call tea ch’a and the Fukienese call it t’e. The Cantonese word was adopted by Japan, India and Russia, whilst the Dutch, who brought tea to Europe, adopted the Fukienese. The English wavered between the two, with early references to chah and chai, strengthened by our very obvious, strong links with the Indian sub-continent. However, this was replaced in polite society with the more refined-sounding tay, staying that way until late in the 18th century, when it was converted, finally, to tea. Tea is divided into three categories: fermented, usually referred to as black ; unfermented, or green and semi-fermented, or oolong With black tea, the leaves are fermented, or oxidised until they turn a warm, coppery colour. Green tea is steamed in cylinders or boilers and oolong teas, which have some of the characteristics of both black and green, are partially fermented before drying. Nutritionally, tea has very little to offer, although the stimulants it contains, such as caffeine can increase heart rate, increase alertness and dilate the airways in the lungs, aiding respiration. One average cup of tea contains around 40mg caffeine, almost twice that found in cola and about two-thirds of the amount found in a cup of instant coffee. One of the drawbacks with tea is the presence of tannins, which not only interfere with iron absorption, but also stain the teeth, a process which is ironically accentuated if a mouthwash containing chlorhexidine is used immediately before drinking tea. So be careful with that morning cuppa! Also, those suffering from peptic ulcers should avoid strong black tea as, like coffee, it stimulates gastric acid secretion, causing irritation and some studies have linked tea to migraines in sensitive people, although it is not quite clear whether this is triggered by the tannins or by the caffeine. On the good side, however, various teas, or more exactly the bioflavonoids, naturally occuring antioxidants in teas, are being investigated for their anti-cancer properties and, although the jury is still out on this one, green and oolong teas in particular have been associated with lower rates of heart disease and cancers. An infusion of dried black leaves gives, per 100g weight, 99.7g water, minimal traces of protein and carbohydrate, 2mg calcium, and very little else. Chinese green tea, per 100g weight, 99.6g water, minimal traces of protein and carbohydrate, 2mg calcium and 0.1mg iron. Any calorific values gained from teas come from the accompanying sugar and milk used by many people.