Spilling the Tea on Tea

This is a post that I have been looking forward to for a long time now. Today – the 21st of May, celebrates my favourite beverage, a drink with which millions of people start their day, a magic drink known by one of two names across the world, the wonder drink that energises, motivates and inspires me to go beyond the mundane in everyday life.

If a single story could talk about European Colonialism, trade routes, taxes and a nation’s independence, it is the story of tea. This article will take you through tea’s journey and the commodification of this magic drink (that was initially a chewable tidbit), picking up on its adventures on trade routes, its association with Buddhist monks and Japanese warriors, and its tryst with aristocracy across the world, not to mention Britain’s (sordid?) love affair with it. The insignificant leaves were quick to become responsible for filling the coffers of the Empires (specifically the British) and played a decisive role in decisions of political and economic significance. Its undeniable role in shaping global history has repercussions of a huge impact that can be felt even today - from the economies of Sri Lanka and China being dependent on it for a fair share of their exports to the popularisation of its ‘rival’ - coffee in the Americas.

The story of its name itself is pretty interesting – tea is known by only two root words throughout the world – ‘te’ and ‘chay’. Regions that were introduced to the leaves through land routes following the Silk Road (most of Asia and Russia) call it using some variant of chay and geographies that were delivered tea through maritime routes (Europe and the Americas) popularised the term tea or some variant of it; both terms originate from different Chinese provinces from where the tea was dispatched. There are a few exceptions to this – in Tamil, it is called Theyneer – which is clearly a derivation from the root word ‘te’, though tea came to South India by land.

A cup of hot tea with Chennai's Mount Road in view

While the plant has captured (and tamed) human imagination for over 4000 years (for context, tea was discovered in China around 2700 BCE, around the same time as the Pharaohs and the Indus Valley Civilisation), it did not cross the physical boundaries of China until at least the sixth century!  Initially, tea was one of those commodities that was undeniably Chinese - with no inherent competition from anywhere else. While tea has been locally consumed and traded in China since times immemorial, one of the first verifiable instances of tea trade is attributed to China’s Song dynasty, which bartered huge amounts of tea for Mongolian and Tibetan horses. The drink was so in demand for dietary reasons that particularly unruly Mongol tribes would be made cooperative by simply withholding tea until they complied! This exchange was carried out through the Tea and Horse Route or the Southern Silk Road that connected China, Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal, India and Myanmar. This practice continued until the Ming dynasty (14th to 17th centuries) was in power.  

Tea was initially consumed for the medicinal benefits it offered, rather than as a social drink, and it would take until the 7th century when China’s T’ang dynasty would change the way tea was consumed, for the fancier. The T’ang period was a time of great artistic refinement – in terms of quality and medium. This had an indelible impact on the way tea was consumed –introducing the still-fancy culture of teahouses and tea gardens, adding sophistication to the drink. While ‘coffeeplaces’ are the common term to refer to places where beverages are taken in a leisurely fashion, coffee actually owes the culture to tea.

The interiors of a traditional Chinese teahouse

Back to tea’s track, it did spread to farther parts of Asia, like Korea and Japan in the Middle Ages - aided by the geographical and cultural proximity to China. However, the reasons for consumption in these geographies were more spiritual than physiological. Tea’s popularity in East Asia is closely linked to Zen Buddhism - as the Zen monks found its stimulating properties useful in their meditation, it soon became indispensable to their lifestyle, and plantations were started in Korea and Japan, with the seeds coming directly from China. Since the quality of the tea could never match the original Chinese style, these countries also imported it in addition to growing their own. Yet, tea did not command unequivocal command in Japan consistently. When Japanese-Chinese relations soured around the 9th century, the excitement over tea also declined. However, a revival in interest in the 12th century resulted in tea becoming much more culturally entrenched in Japanese society as they evolved a tea culture of their own (the Chaa-No-Yu or the Japanese tea ceremony, which is still practiced is testimony to this), and it was decreasingly considered a Japanese imitation of the Chinese. Japanese aristocracy, warriors (the Samurai), and Zen monks all found the drink catering to their varied needs. There were dedicated places serving tea - from tea gardens to Buddhist monasteries. 

While it is unsurprising to see the impact of the drink in Asia, events take a more exciting turn with Vasco Da Gama’s turn around the Cape of Good Hope that led to the discovery of a sea route to India around the Cape of Good Hope (and thus Asia). While the route was discovered in 1497, tea as an item of trade would make its grand entry into Europe only in 1606, when a cargo ship landed in Amsterdam. While the Dutch had a monopoly on the beverage at the outset, the initial fancy over the drink declined as wine (and later coffee - which was cheaper in Holland due to easier access to coffee plantations) was still the preferred social drink.

Empire of Tea - a riveting read for anyone interested in the British Empire and how tea changed its fortunes

However, a greater love story had begun - between tea and the British. The Brits preferred tea to coffee, unlike the rest of Europe, because the English East India Company had been forced out of the Mediterranean by the French and the Dutch and hence could not get coffee from Arabia and Ethiopia. Even if this were true, this proved to be a boon for tea as the British Empire soon became more powerful than the French and the Dutch and controlled a quarter of the world, thus popularising tea beyond any other beverage (except water). This position has not been contested so far. 

However, the Empire had a very deliberate hand in monopolising the tea trade, which introduced deceit and forced labour in the story of tea. All of England’s supply of tea came from China, which had to be paid for in silver. Besides the huge volume of processed tea imported, Britain also had to import the associated accessories from China - teapots, cups, milkpots and related paraphernalia. This is because the drink had captured the imagination of England’s genteel crowd, who were fastidious about the consumption of the beverage - an influence of the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, who married into the British royal family and is credited with bringing tea into vogue with the English aristocracy. While the allure for tea started with the aristocratic crowd, it did not end there; commoners enthusiastically adopting the drink was a universal trend seen in Russia, England, Japan and China. Besides fancy tea houses sprouting everywhere in England, tea also began to be served at local taverns as the drink assimilated into all classes of English society and lost its exclusivity (we discussed something similar happening in Japan and other East Asian regions, centuries before). Interestingly, this was not the case with other commodities like Chinese silk or Indian muslin - which remained in the hands of the aristocracy. Indubitably, tea was able to win over the affections of everyone from the Japanese Samurai to Korea’s Zen monks and Europe’s noblewoman.

Catherine of Braganza - the Portuguese princess who popularized tea in England

Another trend associated with tea is the importance of aesthetically consuming it. The Europeans also loved the accompanying porcelain so much that an entire industry - ‘chinoiserie’ developed in Europe, aimed at producing Chinese imitations of teapots, cups and even furniture! Almost everything that had to do with tea was shipped in from Asia, including teapots, milkpots, canisters, sugar dishes, cups and saucers.

All this importing was proving to be a costly affair, exacerbated by the American Revolutionary War (since the Revolution itself gained tremendous traction from the Boston Tea Party), ending the ready access of silver coming in from Central and South America. The British now had to come up with a new currency - opium. Devising that Indian-grown opium could be traded in exchange for Chinese tea; they decided to grow tea in plantations that would be under their direct control. India was chosen as the preferred location - because of their increasing political influence on the subcontinent and its geographical proximity to China that would allow for the tea leaves of Chinese origin (which was considered superior to the wild Assam variant - biologically and in processing) to be grown locally in India.

While escaping with a precious diamond or the treasures from a pyramid are all stories that run abound in popular culture – the story of a Scottish biologist sent on a British mission to steal our Chinese protagonist – living there for a good 7 years, and absconding to Indian soil to cultivate tea locally (for British interests) is a plot worthy of being made into a Hollywood movie. David Fortune, who is the Indiana Jones of this tale, could not have a better surname as he did turn the fortunes of the Empire when he was chosen to learn the trade secrets of the Chinese, collect authentic tea leaves, and help set up plantations in Assam. In 1843, Fortune was sent on what was possibly the world’s earliest intellectual property theft by an MNC.  He accomplished the mission successfully, and soon, the British had a flourishing tea industry in India.

Chabua, Assam - India's first tea plantation, as it looks today

 It was not long before the Empire decided to diversify further - geographically, setting up plantations in Ceylon. A mind-blowing fact is that Ceylon’s history with coffee is actually longer (albeit less successful) than its history with tea. Ceylon’s coffee plantations, which were set up much before tea, were ruined due to a fungal infestation, and this further made it easier for the British to introduce tea cultivation using indentured Tamil labourers who were forced to relocate from India. By the 1900s, Ceylon tea was a bigger competition to the Indian tea industry than the Chinese one.        

While the British had cemented a huge inflow of revenue from supplying tea grown and processed in its colonies to the entire world, the Empire did find itself in hot water (pun intended) quite often. The most notable event in the history of tea was a watershed moment in world history as well, was the Boston Tea Party, a revolt against the extremely high cost of tea, in essence, against the British monopoly on tea and oppression, eventually leading to American independence from the Empire, which necessitated the need to substitute silver with a different currency, as discussed earlier.  Another major hitch to Britain’s tea trade was the two World Wars. While tea had to be rationed both times, the end of World War II was quickly followed by the independence of India and Ceylon - Britain’s two biggest suppliers of tea and this was a huge blow to an empire that was already in retreat. 

Lipton's vintage ad from the 1940s versus its contemporary ad for Green tea - with which it has become synonymous

The shadow of the world’s colonial past remains even today in the tea trade. Lipton, which initially had coffee plantations in Ceylon and closed them to focus on tea plantations, is still a top international brand. Without being disparaging to coffee, I’d like to mention that over a century earlier, Thomas Twining did the same with his ‘coffeehouse’ in London, and Twinings is a renowned brand with the oldest logo in use today. At the macro level, too, countries that have historically engaged in the cultivation and processing of tea rank in the top today - with China, India and Sri Lanka occupying the 1st, 2nd and 4th positions, respectively. While the Boston Tea Party ironically popularised coffee in the United States owing to an unfair tax imposition on English tea, that led to its boycott, and the soft power the US wields contributes to considerable influence over the culture of consuming coffee as a more sophisticated drink, tea continues to be the preferred beverage among diverse classes, and its cultural and spiritual significance continues to entice people across the world, with tea consumption surpassing the consumption of any other beverage by a huge margin.

Lipton's vintage advertisement from the 1940s

While neither the surreptitious Chinese nor the deceitful English gifted tea to the world of their own volition, if there is one favour they have done to the world, it is, discovering the magic of a few leaves and getting the best out of them. All said and done, tea has undoubtedly retained its nummer een spot in the beverages list and I am sure your next cup of tea will carry more meaning to you, having read the travails tea has taken throughout history.

If you think this article was not a tempest in the teacup, hit that like button and share the tea (figuratively and literally) with your chai-loving friends!

Check these books out for more tea -

Coulton et al.'s "Empire of Tea"

Laura Martin’s “A History of Tea”,

Roy Moxham’s “Tea - Addiction, Exploitation and Empire”,

Sarah Rose’s “For All the Tea in China”