THE HISTORY OF TEA

Some family trees have branches that sprout doctors and lawyers or artists and architects. Mine had a gypsy. My father`s sister Violet wasn`t really descended from the wandering tribes of Egypt, but when I was a child I imagined she was. Her black hair was always tied back in a tight bun, and she wore blowzy flowered dresses, crimson lipstick and dangly earrings. While visiting one blustery winter evening, my wild thoughts were confirmed.

After serving us buttered toast and big cups of hot, sweet, milky tea, Aunt Violet swirled the dregs around in my china cup, dumped the last drops of liquid into the saucer and read my tea leaves. They just looked like blobs to me, but Auntie Vi read them as if they were an open book of the future that would be my life.

In Scotland, women who read tea leaves are called spae wives. The phrase dates from the days when Viking raiders harried Scotland`s coastline, and is a dialect version of the Old Norse word spa. It means ``prophecy`` and was used to denote people gifted with second sight, no great rarity among rural Celts even today, especially if one was born on All Hallows Eve, the night when fairies walk the land.

The Chinese have been reading tea leaves to auger the future for thousands of years, and though no one can prove how tea came to be brewed as a beverage, most scholars agree the practice probably originated in ancient China. According to legend, one day the emperor Shen Nung (2737-2697 B.C.) was boiling water for a purification ceremony and a tree leaf fell into his pot. The aroma was so enticing that the emperor yielded to temptation and tasted the hot liquid. One sip was all it took. Shen Nung blessed the gods for having bestowed such a wondrous gift on him and immediately planted tea trees throughout his kingdom.

Almost all tea nomenclature has Asian origins. The word itself is an English pronunciation of (ITAL) t`e (uñTAL), a Chinese generic term for all tea. The highest grade, Orange Pekoe, has linguistic roots in two cultures. The Chinese word Pek-ho means ``white hairs`` and describes the minute white hairs found on tea leaf tips. Orange refers not to color, but to the House of Orange, a Dutch dynasty that made a fortune in the tea trade.

Souchong comes from the Chinese descriptive term ``siao-chung,`` which means simply ``longer sort.`` Darjeeling and Assam refer to the Himalayan valleys where these types of teas are grown. Formosa Oolong combines place of origin (the island of Formosa) and a word that means ``black dragon`` and indicates high quality.

By the 17th century, European explorers and traders had braved earth`s vast seas, visited most of its continents and returned home with tales of strange new foods. Queen Elizabeth I, who had heard many stories about tea, established the British East India Company to bring the fabled brew to England, but the Chinese considered the English barbarians and refused to trade with them.

The Portuguese and Dutch must have seemed more civilized because their trading efforts with China were successful. As tea flowed into the West, it became the subject of heated debate. A German physician, Simon Paulli, claimed tea drinking would hasten a person`s death, but a Dutch medical practitioner, Nikolas Dirx, insisted the new beverage was a life-sustaining substance.

Research has begun to show that tea does have beneficial medicinal worth. A compound found in green tea, epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG, has cancer-inhibiting properties. Though scientific camps are divided over the effects of caffeine, it does increase metabolism, help move wastes through the system and provide the body with a cooling process by dilating blood vessels.

The folk remedy of drinking tea to combat the flu is grounded in fact because tea`s polyphenols have antiviral and antibacterial properties. Similarly, tea has long been thought to have a calming effect on the nerves, an effect that is most likely attributable to the presence of flavonoids.

Asians drank tea for centuries before it was introduced to the West, but when the leaves arrived in Europe few folk knew what to do with them. More than one sailor brought a tin of tea home to his wife who proudly served plates of the dried leaves to important visitors. Even after Europeans realized that tea leaves should be steeped in water, many people threw the liquid away and served the soggy leaves on slices of buttered bread!

Tea finally reached England in 1658 and was introduced at Thomas Garway`s, an establishment famous for serving another exotic imported brew -- coffee. Garway advertised his new drink as ``a most wholesome beverage that will cure disease, reduce fevers, relieve pain, induce sweet dreams, and make the Body active and lusty.``

With such recommendations, the English were won over to tea drinking in a trice. Eventually, the British East India Company became the largest trading company in the world, and so much tea began being consumed that the government levied a tax on the commodity. That didn`t faze the people a bit. They continued drinking the new beverage, and solved the tax problem by buying from smugglers.

When the Crown imposed a similar tax on its American colonies, the affront was handled quite differently. Irate colonists boarded a ship loaded with tea and tossed its cargo overboard. The deed became known as the Boston Tea Party. It lit the fuse of the American Revolution and turned Americans into coffee drinkers.

Except in France, where the population also staged a political revolution and switched to coffee, tea remained the most popular drink in Europe. To quench their citizens` thirst and fill their treasuries with revenue, Holland and England founded tea plantations throughout their overseas holdings. Importers with famous names like Twining, Bigelow, Lipton, Lyons and Tetley became prosperous tea barons.

When England`s landed gentry began building oriental-inspired teahouses on their estates, they commissioned smiths to create sterling silver teapots, sugar bowls, creamers and tea trays. Potters began turning out similar pieces plus plates, teacups, saucers and entire dinner services in crockery embellished with oriental motifs. The design known as Blue Willow shows indigo scenes of Chinese gardens and teahouses on a white background and is still immensely popular.

In 1840, Duchess Anna of Bedford invited a few friends to her home and served them some late afternoon refreshments: tea, buttered bread and cucumber sandwiches, and a plate of sweet cakes. It became a British aristocratic ritual. Not to be outdone by their peers, the underclasses followed Anna`s lead and in short order the custom of taking afternoon tea spread throughout the Commonwealth.

Tea became such a ubiquitous British passion that tea-related phrases entered the lexicon. According to legend, the word ``teatotaler`` originated one night in 1833 when a habitual drunkard stumbled into a temperance meeting and swore that thenceforth his total liquid consumption would consist only of tea. The phrase ``two for tea`` came about when an industrious tea broker charged only two pence for pots of freshly brewed tea at the 1887 Newcastle Exhibition. His emporium in London`s Piccadilly Circus, Lyons Tea Shop, is still a favorite destination for tea drinkers today.

The British claim to make the world`s best ``cuppa`` and adhere to a precise brewing method. While a kettle of fresh water sits on high heat to boil, a china teapot is filled with hot water. Once the kettle has boiled, the teapot is emptied of its warming water and one teaspoon of good quality tea leaves is added for each cup of tea that will be served. When the boiling water is poured in, the teapot is covered with a pretty cozy and the brew is allowed to steep for three to five minutes. The tea is then served immediately with accompanying milk and sugar.

As life speeded up in the 20th century, people had less time for a leisurely afternoon tea with friends. In 1953, the Tetley Tea Company began marketing its tea in little paper bags allowing anyone to brew just one cup of tea at any time. Despite the convenience of tea bags, experts agree that making tea with loose leaves produces the best flavor because the leaves unfurl completely while brewing. It`s also the only way to foretell the future by reading the leaves in the bottom of one`s cup.

(Edythe Preet is a freelance writer living in Australia.)

(c) 2000, Edythe Preet. Distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

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Author: Edythe Preet