Tea is the national drink of the Chinese nation. It originated from Shennong, was heard by Zhou Gong, and emerged in the Tang Dynasty. Now it has become the three major non-alcoholic beverages (tea, coffee, and cocoa) popular in the world.
Tea is the most consumed beverage in the world today after water. And it is called the “magical oriental leaf” by Westerners.
China is the hometown of tea. Tea has also played a very important role in the history of the world, witnessing the changes in human society and historical development.
It can be said that no other commodity reveals the evolution of the world more than tea. Before oil had the title of “black gold”, tea was the world’s “black gold”.
Unlike oil, tea is a renewable resource.
Human history is like a history of tea development. In the process of tea history, countless tea people and tea companies have played an important role.
Among them, there are ten figures who have influenced the entire development of tea history.
Tea encyclopedia classic——Tea Saint Lu Yu
Lu Yu, the “tea sage” of the Tang Dynasty, once summarized it in “The Six Drinks of the Tea Book”: “Tea as a drink was invented by Shennong and was heard by Duke Zhou of Lu.”
According to another record in “Shen Nong’s Materia Medica”: “Shen Nong tasted hundreds of herbs, encountered seventy-two poisons every day, and got tea to resolve them.”
To master the characteristics of herbal medicines, Shennong practiced it himself and tasted hundreds of herbs. He was poisoned seventy-two times in one day. Finally, he accidentally obtained tea and was able to detoxify.
For the discovery of tea, Shennong, as the ancestor of tea, undoubtedly played a very important role.
However, as a Chinese mythological figure, there is no archaeological evidence to prove the real existence of Shennong. However, Lu Yu, who has influenced the historical development of tea in later generations for thousands of years, is indeed a leading figure in the tea world.
Lu Yu has been fond of tea all his life and is good at tea ceremony. His “Tea Classic” is the world’s first monograph on tea. He has made outstanding contributions to the development of China’s tea industry and the world’s tea industry, and is known as the “Tea Saint”.
In 758 AD, the encyclopedic classic “Tea Classic” on tea production was published. It systematically and comprehensively discussed the methods and experiences of growing, making, drinking, and evaluating tea, and was known as the “Encyclopedia of Tea”.
Disseminator of tea culture——Zen Master Rongxi
Zen Master Rongxi (1141~1215), named Mingan, became a monk at the age of 14. He practiced Tendai Esoteric Buddhism on Mount Hiei. He later studied in the Song Dynasty twice and introduced Zen to Japan.
He brought back tea tree seeds from China, encouraged its cultivation in Japan, and popularized the method of drinking tea. His book “Eating Tea for Health” is Japan’s first book on tea, and is known as Japan’s “Tea Patriarch”.
Rongxi studied Buddhist scriptures and tea all his life, and went to China twice to study. In addition to studying Chinese culture and Buddhist scriptures, he also spent a lot of time studying Chinese tea growing, tea making, and tea drinking techniques.
After returning to Japan, he not only brought back Chinese scriptures but also Chinese tea seeds. Zen Master Rongxi can be said to be the Japanese version of “Master Xuanzang”. After Chinese tea was introduced to Japan through Rongxi, it quickly developed.
World communication ambassador of tea——Cruz
As early as 1560, the Portuguese missionary Cruz came to China with the purpose of “stealing” Chinese porcelain, silk, tea, and other secrets. In name, he was studying and inspecting the great power of China, but in fact he was conducting espionage.
Cruz disguised himself as an expedition caravan and spent four years investigating China’s mainland and trading ports. After returning to China, he wrote a book called “Chinese Tea Drinking Records”, which became the first European monograph introducing Chinese tea.
It is precisely because of the huge profits brought by China’s exported tea trade that European countries have coveted it, and they all hope to get a piece of the silk tea trade.
Since the “Record of Chinese Tea” written by Cruz spread throughout Europe, European adventurers have continued one after another without interruption. It was also starting from Cruz that many Western explorers salivated and started thinking about Chinese tea.
From an objective point of view, it also promotes the expansion and spread of tea to the world.
Ambassador of tea drinking and tea culture——Princess Catherine
Tea was not first introduced to Britain, but to Portugal and the Netherlands. Although the British also drank tea at that time, its subsequent popularity should be attributed to the Portuguese princess Catherine Braganza who married King Charles II of England in 1661.
The wife of the British King, Queen Catherine of Portugal, brought her noble tea-drinking habits into British court life, making family tea parties the most fashionable social etiquette among the princes and nobles.
What goes up leads to results, and the power of example is endless. After the 18th century, drinking tea had gradually entered the daily family life of most British people from a fashionable luxury in the British upper class.
It is also because of the influence of Princess Catherine, the “fashionable tea-drinking IP”, that the custom of drinking afternoon tea in Britain and even Europe has been established today.
Breaking China’s tea monopoly——Robert Fortune
The tea trade between China and Britain was of great significance to the British economy.
In 1839, Britain imported more than 40 million pounds of Chinese tea, and the tea tax collected exceeded 3 million pounds, accounting for 10% of the total revenue of the British treasury.
The tea trade between China and Britain has become one of the pillar industries of the UK. In the world tea market, China has a strong monopoly on tea exports, and the lifeline of the British tea economy is in the hands of Chinese tea merchants and the Qing government. This put the British in a strong state of uneasiness, and they were eager to break the Chinese monopoly.
On June 20, 1848, Robert Fortune set out from the port of Southampton, England, to Hong Kong, embarking on a fantastic journey that changed the history of tea in the world.
As early as the Qing Dynasty, Britain was the world’s largest colonial empire. To steal Chinese tea trees and tea-making technology, it sent plant spy Fortune to go deep into the interior of China, steal tea leaves, and take away tea-making workers who were proficient in tea-making technology.
Fortune went to Wuyi Mountain to steal black tea seeds, and then went to Songluo Mountain in Anhui to steal tea seedlings. After three years of back-and-forth research, he finally successfully transplanted Chinese tea to India and successfully made black tea.
This tea thief broke China’s long-standing monopoly on tea and expanded tea to all parts of the world. Although people who steal other countries’ technologies and patents are despised, they also objectively promoted the global development of tea.
Beverages from China to the world——Thomas Lipton
Thomas Lipton is the founder of the Lipton brand. In 1890, he launched Lipton black tea in the UK.
His advertising slogan is “Direct from tea garden to the tea pot”. In 1892, Lipton began a globalization movement, first setting up a factory in the United States, and then opening a branch in India, entering the Far East market.
In 1898, Lipton was awarded a knighthood by the Queen of England and gained the reputation of “The King of Black Tea in the World”.
In 1992, Lipton entered China, the country with the longest history of tea drinking and the largest number of tea drinkers in the world.
Lipton’s globalization strategy has promoted the development of global beverages and made tea the world’s largest beverage.
The pioneer of the renaissance of China’s modern tea industry——Chi Bingde
Chi Bingde (1877~unknown), formerly known as Chi Yuelong, was born in Wengyuan County, Shaozhou Prefecture (now Wengyuan County, Shaoguan City). His ancestors have been making oolong tea for generations. He worked as a tea maker at Meizhen Tea House when he was 14 years old. When he was 17 years old, he followed his father to Guangzhou. By the time he was 21 years old, he had become a well-known tea maker in the tea industry.
In 1898, Chi Bingde founded “Tak Kee Tea House” in Guangzhou, and later moved to Hong Kong and renamed it “Long Deji Tea House”. It mainly engaged in the oolong tea business and once developed into a Chinese tea company comparable to Lipton in modern times.
Chi Bingde is at the helm of Long Deji Tea House, known as the “Oolong Family”, using Hong Kong as a springboard to expand oolong tea trade to all parts of the world, breaking the gap in the oolong tea market in North America. It is known as the pioneer of the renaissance of China’s modern tea industry.
Promoter of tea industrialization process – Thomas Sullivan
In June 1908, American tea merchant Thomas Sullivan hoped to expand sales, so he put a small amount of tea samples into small silk bags and sent them to potential customers for trial.
After receiving these strange little bags, the confused customers had no idea what to do, so they put the silk bags together with them in cups to soak, and the world’s first batch of tea bags were unexpectedly born.
Sullivan’s unintentional move made the teabag industry what it is today.
In the UK alone, people drink around 130 million cups of teabags every day. A small unintentional move unearthed the huge market for tea bags that customers demand “convenience”.
The transformation from loose tea to tea bags may seem like a very common “invention” now, but it was indeed a major tea revolution at the time.
Sullivan’s invention of the tea bag promoted the industrialization and standardization of tea production, and promoted tea from the agricultural era to the industrial era!
The modern tea masterpiece “All About Tea”——William Ux
“All About Tea” was compiled by American William Ux and published in 1935. It is a world-wide masterpiece on tea.
The book is divided into six parts: history, technology, science, business, society, and art.
This world’s tea encyclopedia was compiled by Ux over a period of 10 years starting from 1925.
During this period, it took a lot of pains to collect information, organize and classify it, visit relevant tea countries, correct relevant records, and finalize it for printing.
The book consists of six chapters and 25 chapters. Its broad scope, complete categories, and detailed description make it the first tea book. It is called the World Tea Encyclopedia by the tea industry.
“Tea Classic”, “Eating Tea for Health” and “All About Tea” are also known as the three famous works on the history of tea in the world.
Pioneer of the renaissance of China’s contemporary tea industry——Wu Juenong
Wu Juenong (1897~1989), a native of Shangyu, Zhejiang, was a famous agronomist and tea expert in China, and the founder of the revival and development of my country’s modern tea industry. He devoted his whole life to China’s modern tea industry. He was the first to discuss that China is the origin of tea trees and made outstanding contributions to the development of China’s tea industry.
His “Review of the Tea Classic” is the most authoritative work on Lu Yu’s “Tea Classic” today, and he is known as the contemporary “Tea Sage”.
He founded China’s first tea industry major in higher education institutions and a national tea company, and founded the first tea research institute at the foothills of Wuyi Mountain in Fujian. He has made outstanding contributions to the development of China’s tea industry and is known as the pioneer of the renaissance of China’s contemporary tea industry!
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