Sri Lanka - History Every Tea Enthusiast Should Know

OK. Maybe it's not imperative to know, but it's still pretty interesting. ;)

Early on (circa 6 BC) Sri Lanka was dominated by the Sinhalese (a Buddhist people), however over time, the Tamil people from India took over as more and more people migrated over to the island.  the Tamils were people of the Hindu faith.

They didn't really get along all that well (this appears to be a recurring theme in history), So they fought it out and the Tamils established a presence in the Kandy region, and The Sinhalese move further down to the South of the island.

Eventually Europe steps into the picture.  The Portuguese arrive and establish 'friendly'  trade with the islanders, but by 1505 they have control over the whole island except for the Kandy region.  The Tamils are worried so they ask the Dutch to help them (silly!), and by 1658 the entire island except for Kandy is now controlled by the Dutch.  by 1796 the British had moved in and by 1815 they had control of the ENTIRE island.

Could all this fighting really be over tea?!  No, of course not!  It was over coffee.  Up until the 1860's the island grew mainly coffee.  The coffee plantations in the 1860's was literally wiped out by a type of pant virus known in plain english as 'coffee rust'.  At this time the main crop was replaced with tea.  The first plantings were from cuttings from the Aasam region in India.

(This file was originally shared by Colby Otero and was taken from his Flickr Account at this location.  He has allowed usage of his photo under Creative Commons.)

James Taylor was one of the first from the British to plant a tea garden in the Kandy region.  He planted in 1866, and by 1872 he had built himself a tea processing plant.  In 1875 the first shipment of tea was sent to England.  Sir Thomas Lipton recognized that tea was a potentially lucrative product and hooked up James Taylor as his supplier of tea,  and well as you know, Lipton teas became famous for their teas from Ceylon.

Sri Lanka's tea production has grown to be the third largest tea producing country in the world. There are 6 tea growing regions ( Kandy, Dimbula, Nuwara Elia, Uda Pussallawa, UVA and Ruhuna) of which 5 were covered in the tea tasting here.

The island was first named Ceylon in English, and in 1972 the name was changed to Sri Lanka which means 'beautiful island'.  Incidentally in 1948 the British finally relinquished their rule and Sri Lanka became what is known as  a self governing dominion of the commonwealth nations.  Which I believe is the same as Canada!!

Japanese Tea History - A Quick Overview

Back in the day, around 794-1185 tea was brought to Japan in the form of dancha (a hard ball of oxidized tea leaves) by japanese monks that had been to China.  In the 800's Japan and China had a falling out which led to anything Chinese (including tea) to be dropped from Japanese culture.  By the 12th century relations with China were back on track and tea was once again popular.

At this point a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk by the name of Eisai introduced tea seeds and tea etiquette from China.  His main objective was to use the tea as an aid for mediating monks.  Eisai experimented with tea and together with monk Myo-e promoted the drinking of powdered tea as both a health benefit and a Zen training tool.  This powdered tea was called Matcha.   Monks started their daily ritual, and here began the beginning of the rules of preparing and serving tea.

By the 13th century samurai warriors were into the matcha.  They were adopting the Zen ways, but the tea also became a source of entertainment and excess.  Big extravagant parties were held, and tea in Japan was getting quite a reputation.

Then came a fellow by the name of Murato Shuko (1423-1502), who transformed the Matcha from a source of entertainment, to more of a ceremony.  He created the tea and the concepts of Wabi and Ichigo Ichie which became central to the tea ceremony.

Wabi is 'finding beauty in imperfection and discovering a sense of the profound in all things nature'.  It means what it says - one should be able to find beauty in all things, not just in what is visually appealing to the eye.  Ichigo Ichie is 'one time, one meeting', which essentially means that every encounter one has is unique and once it is over it is gone forever.  So even if there is something in your life that you do everyday, it may appear to be the same everyday, but in fact every time it occurrs it happens a little differently.  It is this fact that makes every moment in life unique and all moments should be accounted for as unique and special in its own right.

Perhaps the biggest influence on the practice of tea came from Sen Rikyu (1522-1591) who continued on with the work of his predecessor Shuko, which led to the development of the tea ceremony.  The Japanese tea ceremony is a complex set of procedures for preparng the tea, and for receiving the tea.  It takes many many years, often a lifetime to perfect. 

Modern tea gardens are for the most part designed for harvest by machinery, and that is why the tea rows are so uniform.  The needle like shape of the leaves is a result of the rolling and drying machines that are used.  Most of the green tea is steamed in Japan, but there are some roasted or pan fired teas from the island of Kyushu.

While most tea is processed by machinery, it is important to note that this does not affect the quality of the tea, it simply allows for more efficient processing techinques.  Unlike most of the tea producing countires, Japan has the ability to come up with the capital to support this type of processing. 

The best teas are said to come from the Yame region of Fukuoka Prefecture and the Uji region of Kyoto in the Shizuoka Prefecture.  Green teas from Japan are simply amazing and should be explored and enjoyed by everyone.

Tea from China - History

Just finished my Skype session with the instructor and other class participants.  WOW!!  Is there ever a lot to know in this module.  The book is like three times the size as the Tea 101 materials and of course the tea list is huge!!  I'm going to summarize here the history of tea in China.

China is the birthplace of tea.  It was discovered in 2737 by Emporer Shen Nong.  He was sitting in the shade of a tree and boiling some water when a breeze came up and blew some of the leaves from the tree into his pot of boiling water.  Instead of dumping it out he drank it and found it to be delish!!  Tea was born, as the tree he was sitting under was a tea tree.

The Chinese also have an answer for how the tea trees came to be:  It was because Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Zen decided that he was going to sit in front of the Shaolin Temple in China and meditate for 9 years.  Unfortunately he dosed off a little and was so upset with himself (Doesn't seem very Zen like) that he sliced off his eyelids and threw them to the ground.  From those eyelids grew the first tea bush!!

Tea was first brewed by boiling it to death.  This resulted in, as you can imagine a very strong and bitter liquor that was used primarily for medicinal purposes.  It must have worked because they started to cultivate it due to the demand for its medicinal uses.  The first cultivation of tea started in the Szechwan province.  by the mid 4th century.  The imperial court even put a levy on the tea called a 'tea tribute' - the first form of tax on tea.  The unfortunate reality was that the tea tribute was so important that the peasants had to focus on tea growing, and little to no focus on growing food, and for the poor in China it meant many people died of famine.  (Every country's history has something to this effect in their history - how can we be so unjust to each other?).

The first teas were pressed into cakes and then roasted until hard and red in color.  Tea was traded.  The Tibetans traded war horses for tea, and was such as sought after commodity that they used the hardened tea bricks as currency.  They also used tea in their meals as a flavour additive.

The Tang Dynasty in China 618 - 907 was a period of aesthetic quality - it was refined and sophisticated.  Tea was brought to a whole new level.  The brewing, and cultivating and the manufacturing of teas began to be turned into an art.  Fruit juices were being added to sweeten the flavours, and more attention was given to brewing a tea that had distinctive aromas and flavours.

LuYu - the patron saint of tea writes the first book about tea, its origins, methods and tools used for plucking and processing, preparing and serving.  He documented how it should be prepared, served and appreciated.  He was the first to document tea.

Now in China independent privately owned coops share local resources for labour, harvest, processing and distribution.  The government regulates much of the tea and still typically harvests and operates large scale farms.  China has a significant portion of the worlds tea gardens-about50%, but only produces about 20% of the world output.