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History of Tea
Tea becomes a beverage made from the leaves and stems of an evergreen tree of the camellia family called chanoki.
It grows mainly in tropical and subtropical climates and is said to have originated in East Asia, in mountain ranges from India to Yunnan Province in China. It is said that the ethnic minorities (probably ancient Thai) living in these mountain ranges drank tea in one way or another (they are said to have broken branches of wild tea trees, roasted them by sticking them in a fire and throwing the branches into boiling water to drink), and the custom of drinking tea spread down to the lowlands, where it was practiced by the Han Chinese, It is said that this custom of drinking tea moved down to the lowlands and became the custom of the Han Chinese.
In China, it is documented that Han Chinese in Shu (Sichuan Province) had the custom of drinking tea during the Han Dynasty, but it is not clear when this custom started.
The character for “tea” is said to have been created during the Tang Dynasty in the 8th century, and is said to have been created by Lu Yu, who wrote the first Chinese (and the world’s first) specialized book on tea, the Tea Sutra. Before the character for “tea” appeared, it was used in place of the Chinese word “crema” (荼), which means “bitter gourd.” During the Three Kingdoms period, which came after the Han Dynasty, many Han Chinese entered Shu and witnessed people drinking tea (as a medicine), which spread to northern China, and the practice of drinking tea spread so widely that a specialized book was written during the subsequent Tang Dynasty. It is said that this is the origin of the tea ceremony.
The tea of those days was called “dancha,” which was made by steaming plucked tea leaves, grinding them into fine dumplings with a mortar and pestle, drying them, scraping them off, and putting them in a pot of hot water.
In Mongolia, as mentioned in “Travels on the Road to Mongolia” this dancha is also known as “cha,” and is used by nomadic tribesmen who eat only meat and milk, with little or no vegetables, to avoid scurvy (a deficiency of vitamin C). These were mainly brought from China.
These were brought mainly from China. They were so valuable and expensive that the nomads became impoverished in order to obtain them, according to Ryotaro Shiba in his book “Kaido yuku: Jiangnan-no-michi, China.
It is said that Yumcha (tea ceremony) was introduced to Europe in the 17th century from the Netherlands, as described in “Kaido yuku: Holland Travels” and from Dejima in Nagasaki during the Japan-Dutch trade in the Edo period, as described in “Kaido yuku: Karatsu, Hirado, Sasebo, Nagasaki e no Michi” (Road to Karatsu, Hirado, Sasebo and Nagasaki). However, because it was a Japanese-style tea, it was accompanied by a ceremony, and it is said that the number of people who accepted it was limited.
Next, tea spread to the United Kingdom, as described in “Traveling the Highways of Ireland (1): A Journey to the United Kingdom“.
Tea leaves contain enzymes that ferment and turn brown when left unchecked (black tea), and the taste of tea is greatly influenced by the quality of the water (hard/soft water) in which it is made. Hard water” suppresses the extraction of tannins and prevents astringency, making the tea “tasty and easy to drink,” while “soft water” brings out the original color, aroma, and taste of the tea leaves and makes it less tasty and easy to drink. Soft water” water is more likely to produce the color, aroma, and taste of tea leaves straight from the tea leaves, while poor quality tea leaves will produce a strong astringent or acidic taste.
In England, hard water, not soft water, was the main water source for tea. In general, black tea brewed with hard water is a strong, strong, drinkable tea with a darker color and a reddish-black appearance, while black tea brewed with soft water is softer and easier to drink, with a beautiful, true color of the tea leaves.
Black tea with hard water seems to be different from what we drink in Japan.
In England, tea for black tea was imported mainly from China. The amount of tea going out from the port of Canton (Guangzhou), which was called Nagasaki in the Qing Dynasty at that time, to England was enormous, and silver was paid as the price for it. In order to recover the silver, they tried to get China to buy woolen goods, the fruits of the Industrial Revolution, but China would not accept them.
Eventually, the British (East India Company in practical terms) tried to change the one-way flow of silver by tea in the 18th century by selling opium to China, turning many of the Qing people into addicts and increasing demand for opium, and succeeded in doing so, which led to the Opium War, which in turn forced the Qing to humiliatingly open their country.
Twenty years before that opium war, the British discovered wild tea in the interior of Assam, India, and cheap labor in India led to moderately priced tea, and Chinese demand for tea declined. Thus, tea became a commodity that shocked the world, like oil in the Middle East in the 20th century.
Tea in Japan
In Japan, tea is said to have come from the Tang Dynasty during the Nara period (710-794), and there is a record of Saicho offering tea to the emperor as described in “Kaido yuku Eizan no Shodo (Saicho and the Tendai sect),” which was written in the book “Kukai, Shikoku Pilgrimage and Santiago Pilgrimage,” and a record of Kukai taking tea seeds back to Japan, which is the origin of Yamato tea The tea of that time was dancha, and the tea was called “dan-cha” in Japanese.
The tea of those days was called “dancha,” and since the tea leaves themselves were preserved for a long time, the aroma was weak, and ginger, sweet vine, and spices were added to the tea. Since it was very expensive, only people of a certain status, such as members of the imperial family, were allowed to drink it.
In contrast, as described in the book “Strolling along the Highway to Kyoto’s Famous Temples and Daitokuji Temple – Dada, Zen and Ikkyu“, Eisai brought back from China (Sung Dynasty) a tea ceremony called “matcha”, in which tea leaves are preserved without hardening and powdered before drinking, along with tea plants during the Kamakura period.
At that time, Zen was at its peak in the Song dynasty (960-1279), and monks were busy working and studying from morning to night in Zen monasteries, drinking matcha (powdered green tea) to fight sleepiness.
Later, in the late Kamakura period when Masanari Kusunoki was active as described in “Kaido yuku – Kawachi no michi“, a feudal lord named Michiyo Sasaki (Basara: Sanskrit for “vigor”, meaning extravagance, extravagance, and behavior contrary to the old order and authority) gathered his fellow warriors and told them to go to a tea-producing area. The game spread throughout Japan.
Later, in the middle of the Muromachi period (1333-1573), the Higashiyama culture that blossomed around Ginkakuji Temple in Kyoto gave rise to a new architectural style unique to Japan called Shoin-zukuri, in which rooms were covered with tatami mats, and the “Chanoyu-no-Ma” was created, where people enjoyed entertainment, food and tea ceremonies.
In the late Muromachi period (1392-1573), Murata Jukou, the founder of the tea ceremony, came to Japan and declared that he would create his own unique Japanese culture, breaking away from the traditional inclination toward Chinese culture. What emerged from this was the beauty of fluctuation called “wabi and sabi,” as described in “Fu-ryu dorya furyu,” which means “where there is no furyu, there is also furyu.
This “wabicha” of Murata Shuko was inherited by Sakai’s wealthy merchant Takeno Shao’o, as described in “Kaido yuku Sakai, Kishu kaido” (The Road to Sakai and Kishu), and was given its ultimate form by Sen no Rikyu, and later, as described in “Meiji Art: Fenollosa, Okakura Tenshin and Tea Books,” drinking tea became an art form and culture in Japan. The tea ceremony itself was first introduced in the Edo period (1603-1867).
Until a certain point in the Edo period (1603-1867), tea was literally brown in color, both when it was prepared and when it was consumed. In contrast, Soen Nagatani of Uji, Kyoto, came up with a new method of tea production that would preserve the shiny green color of the tea plantations, rather than the brown.
Soen developed a method called “Ao-sei,” in which tea buds are picked, roasted in a kettle, hand-rubbed, and sun-dried, but instead of roasting, the tea is steamed in hot water and then hand-rubbed and dried, leaving the green color of the leaves. The tea made using this method is called “sencha” and is also called “gyokuro.
One of Soen Nagatani’s descendants is Yoshio Nagatani, founder of Nagatanien, famous for its ochazuke. Nagatanien has designated May 17 as “Ochazuke Day” in honor of the anniversary of Soen’s death.
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