People’s History of Tea: Earliest Origins

Tea has been on a dual track for more than a millennium. From the moment tea leaves first left the mountains of Sichuan and found their way into distant palaces and temples, there have been two histories of tea. One is the glamorous mythology of tea-loving emperors, gentry, and merchants who sought to elevate their hobby and business; the other a much later effort to piece together the more complicated story of how millions of working people have come to create and enjoy the world’s second favorite drink. The former more mythological effort began with Lu Yu, the Tang Dynasty’s sage of tea, and the latter traditional began with Wu Juenong, the father of modern Chinese tea. Both are indispensable for a full understanding of tea’s history. 

The goal in this series is to build on their work to produce a comprehensive people’s history of tea. Two passages set the basic tone for this effort. The first is a Ming dynasty folk poem said to have originated from what is now a part of Hangzhou city’s Fuyang Township. The Song of Fuyang goes as follows:    

The Fish of the Fuyang River, The Tea of Fuyang Mountains. The fish are fat and I sell my son, The tea is fragrant and wrecks my home. Wives pick tea and husbands catch fish, the officials’ tortures leave no flesh intact. Why is Heaven so cruel? What is the sin of this land? Why can’t the fish be born in another county? Why can’t the tea grow in another town?

Another core passage comes from the Qing Dynasty novel Dream of the Red Chamber. 

 "Where's the teakettle?" Baoyu asked, wiping his eyes. "It's there on the edge of the stove."Bright-Cloud responded. Baoyu looked around. So this filthy, rusty pot with the coal-black spout was the teapot? He picked up a dirty bowl, the only one he could find on the table. It had a nasty smell of rancid mutton fat. Shaking his head and with tears in his eyes, he washed it and then dried it with one of his silk handkerchiefs. Then he filled it half full from the black iron pot. So this cloudy, dark red brew was supposed to be tea? He tasted the bitter muck, and was overcome with nausea. It cut him to the heart to see how the sick girl greedily gulped down the contents of the bowl in one swallow, as if it were the sweetest dew from heaven(Chapter 77).

These two passages get at the very different things that tea production and consumption meant for different classes of people. The tea and fish from the rural areas around Hangzhou were a source for celebration to the officials who collected them at a fixed price or took them directly as a tax. They were no doubt also a source of delight for those in the city who could afford to buy them. For the farmers, tea was a cause of misery. A few centuries later, it would be the sustained misery of tea growing areas that would inspire cooperative reformers like Wu Juedong and push many young men off the tea fields and into banditry or the Red Army. 

At the consumption end, the episode quoted above and others in the Dream of the Red Chamber showed the difference between classes. In a more remembered section, Dowager Jia leads her rustic relative Granny Liu through the lavish estate gardens(Chapter 41). Stopping at the garden’s nunnery, the proud and eccentric nun Miaoyu serves the group tea. Dowager Jia refuses the nun’s more common Guapian in favor of a more delicate Junmei; quite the opposite, Granny Liu finds the tea served all too weak, and suggests it should have been boiled longer. “好是好，就是淡了一些，可以多熬一熬。” Miaoyu is offended by Liu’s barbarity and refuses to ever touch again the cup stained by her lips. In Miaoyu’s secluded life, tea is a form of self-expression and self-cultivation, it is a topic she enjoys discussing with young master Baoyu and mistress Dai-yu at length. So, how dare this ignorant cretin show her such insolence - the tea was brewed perfectly, and it was Granny Liu’s mistake for being unable to appreciate it properly.      

When Bao-yu secretly visited his banished servant Bright Clould, neglected and dying in her home residence, everything about the tea was a cause for shock and pity. Tea, broth, and anything else was drunk from one single dirty bowl, the pot it was brewed in was rusted and covered in black soot, and the tea itself was like nothing he had ever drank, it was not the clear light beverage served up by Miaoyu or his servants, nor was it made from first flush buds stored in air-tight porcelain containers. No matter how she was thirsty, Bao-yu was shocked the poor girl could drink this. He would have been shocked to learn that similarly pitiful brews were the only tea known to the vast majority of working people in urban and rural areas. Only in the last generation or so can a farmer or urban worker now also enjoy the same selection of fine ceramic tea ware and tender tea that Young Master Bao-yu would have found normal at the zenith of the Qing Dynasty.  

Early History of Tea - Primordial Soup

The commonly told story of Emperor Shennong (Farmer God)’s discovery of tea is a tale of two-fold stolen valor. In the first place, many if not all of Shennong’s supposed botanical and pharmacologic discoveries were much later associations. His lucky detoxification with the help of tea is no exception. Shennong was merely an avatar of the very real agricultural and medical developments that took place in the Wei River valley which laid the foundations for Chinese civilization. Tea is no exception. But unlike millet or sorghum, tea was not on the menu for the same group of northern farmers that would set down the characteristically Chinese characters and philosophy in the fertile plains of what are now Gansu, Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi. Wild tea plants were thousands of miles to the south of their world. Our favorite drink was instead the discovery of civilizations and cultures now only dimly remembered. The Ba people in what is now Sichuan and the various tribes of what are now Western Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, and Yunnan, remembered in Chinese history as the Southwest “barbarians” were almost certainly the first to discover the plant, and it is in these places that ancient tea trees are still found in abundance. 

If one Jin Dynasty commentator is to be believed, The Zhou Court was receiving tea as tribute along with lacquer and honey from the “Masters of Ba and Shu,” who ruled what are now southern Shaanxi, Chongqing, and Sichuan state as early as 1100 BCE. Certainly after the (茶) Cha Clan and a place called 葭萌 (Jiameng) in what is now Guangyuan City were brought into the Qin State, tea would become a part of Chinese history around the 4^th Century BCE. The Sichuan locals first called the plant something in their language(s) which to the early Chinese ears sounded like (chuancha)“荈诧”or “蔎” (she).These words were almost certainly quite different than how we render them today in a modern Pinyin-based script. Unwritten terms like “la” and “chuta” still survive in some Southern minority languages, and there were perhaps countless others, but it would be 茶, read as “cha” in Mandarin, that would stick. Initially, it seems, 荈（chuan) was known to these Chinese as just one of many rare bitter medicinal ingredients, and would not become a commonly enjoyed beverage at court for centuries to come. The final character we use today (茶), tea would be developed from any early term “荼” (tu) meaning thistle or other bitter vegetables.

Early Tea and Tea-Adjacent Terms

In the meantime, it would be left to the Ba and Man “barbarians” of Southwestern China to troubleshoot tea production and consumption. Pi Rixiu of the Tang Dynasty wrote: “before Lu Yu, those who were called tea(茗) drinkers were no different than the sippers of vegetable soup, always mixing together various ingredients. ” Earlier in the Jin Dynasty, commentator Guo Pu gave one of the earliest descriptions of tea(槚): “a leaf that could be boiled into a soup and drunk.”From the Tang Dynasty’s Book of Man, we get a hint of just what went into this soup: “Tea grows in Yinshengchengjie(Jingdong County, Yunnan), and the Man collect it here and there randomly, cooking it together with peppercorns, ginger, and osmanthus before drinking.” An earlier Three Kingdoms era text Guangya states that the people “between Jing and Ba,” meaning perhaps modern day Yichang, Enshi, Xiangxi, and Chongqing, would first roast the tea before brewing it up with scallions, gingers, and oranges to produce a beverage that would “make them sleepless.” Early enjoyers of tea within Han Civilization proper seemed to have largely followed suit. They continued to balance out the “bitter and cooling ” leaves with ginger and scallions. Such were the earliest tea soups of millennia past. 

Like any other vegetable, the earliest farmers and gatherers of Southwestern China had a few options in how to make the raw tea leaves into a ready-to-go soup ingredient. Like some farmers today in Yueyang, Changde, and Yiyang, step one may have been flash boiling, or steaming as survives in Enshi and Yichang. Surely others must have tried letting it dry in indirect sunlight before the practice would be standardized into what we now call white tea. Some also thought to knead the tea with their hands or feet for a stronger brew, before finishing it a variety of different ways. It could be smoked over a fire like cured pork, left to dry under the sun like fish or ginger, or alternatively sealed into a ceramic container or bamboo to ferment like pickled cabbage. 

Unorthodox Tea Preparations in Contemporary China  

Much to Lu Yu and Pi Rixiu’s chagrin, the people in between “Jing” and “Ba,” and in various other corners of inland China still sometimes enjoy tea in similar ways to the processes described above. For Lu Yu, the habit to mix tea leaves with fruit and other ingredients was a vulgar and common practice that made a brew no better than ditch water (沟渠间弃水). Among minority groups, the Yao people in Guangxi today still fry up tea with oil and ginger, while the Tujia enjoy tea fried up with soy beans and toasted rice. Further South, the De’ang People in China and Myanmar bury tea in thick Bajiao (similar to banana) leaves or seal them into ceramic pots and let them ferment into a sour, almost yogurt-tasting tea. Among the Han, some preparations are no less exotic. Smoked tea in Hunan’s Weishan and Yueyang can be enjoyed straight, or enhanced with Sichuan peppercorns. Much more mild, the Farmhouse Tea in Anhua is barely processed, enjoyed with sesame and peanut, and is chewed on as one sips it down. Pounded Tea often starts out similarly with simple flash-boiled fresh tea leaves, but they are then pulverized along with sesame, peanuts, and any number of other ingredients into a thicker, more potent brew. Up North, widespread favorites include Shaanxi and Gansu’s “Eight Treasure Tea” most commonly infused with rock sugar, dates, goji berries. A slightly more hardcore version of this, Jar Tea is toasted along with dates over a fire or special burner, then boiled together with a variety of other ingredients in a ceramic vessel. All of these regional favorites would find only limited appreciation at more professional tea houses in bigger urban centers.        

Elevating a Habit

Much has been said about the nutritional benefit that tea has offered to pastoral steppe peoples like the Mongolians and Tibetans, but little has been said about the initial dietary and culinary boon that tea was for early Han Culture, and how the ancient Han elite incorporated into their own food traditions. One of the first explicit historical record of someone drinking tea was scholar-official Wei Zhao during the Three Kingdoms Period. Sun Hao, emperor of the waning Wu State, allowed Wei to drink tea (茶荈) during feasts as he could only drink “3 Sheng,” around 600 liters, of liquor, despite the emperor’s mandate that guests consume no less than 7 Sheng at a given meal. The alcohol consumed at these events would have been most similar to Japanese sake, contemporary Chinese rice wines, or Nepali Tongba. They were relatively lower in alcohol content, sweet, and made from rice, millet, sorghum, and other grains. Although Sun Hao was personally faulted for the demise of the Wu State, his drinking habits were not unusual for the time. Like for mediaeval kings or ancient Romans, low proof alcohol took the place in our daily diets we now occupy with coffee, tea, juice, or sparkling water. In China, tea would become a welcome addition to feasts for booze-weary officials like Wei Zhao going forward. 

In the millennium or so that preceded this episode, soup and booze were the main beverages that could quench the thirst of the Chinese elite. When at home with family, out making sacrifices, or at a peer’s house as a guest, elaborate rules of decorum, as laid out in texts like the Classic of Rites, dictated how both forms of refreshment could be enjoyed. Some relevant passages can be seen below:

The rules for bringing in the dishes for an entertainment are the following: The meat cooked on the bones is set on the left, and the sliced meat on the right; the rice is placed on the left of the parties on the mat, and the soup on their right; the minced and roasted meat are put outside(Qu Li 1.45). 

Do not (try to) gulp down soup with vegetables in it, nor add condiments to it; do not keep picking the-teeth, nor swill down the sauces. If a guest adds condiments, the host will apologize for not having had the soup prepared better(Qu Li 1.48).

Admirable as are the spirits and sweet spirits, a higher value is attached to the dark spirit and the bright water,--in order to honour that which is the source of the five flavors. Beautiful as is the elegant embroidery of robes, a higher value is set on plain, coarse cloth, going back to the commencement of woman's work... The Grand Soup is unseasoned,-in honour of its simplicity(Jiao Te Sheng 30).  

It was the mark of the lowly commoner to add condiments to ones soup or enjoy a premixed cocktail. According to this same text, only in illness would cinnamon or ginger be permitted to enhance flavor. Simplicity and purity in one’s drink, and a performative preference for these attributes would distinguish one as a virtuous gentlemen, someone worthy of the tax revenue that kept them out of the fields and appropriately seated in their cold stone halls.

This was the elite food culture that Lu Yu and others hand to incorporate tea into. 

Although archaeological evidence suggests that tea was at least occasionally consumed in Shandong and Shaanxi in periods that predate Wei Zhao’s famous substitution, it seems that such consumption was still extremely rare. In Wang Bao’s peculiar story / agreement of a workshy slave and his masters, Tongyue, there is one reference to tea being purchased in a place called Wuyang, as well as specialized equipment for preparing tea. This is an exceptionally singular mention of tea consumption in the Han Dynasty. It was not explicitly referenced as being consumed by Chinese noblemen in other poems or historical documents of any court of The Shang, Zhou, Qin, or Han. Centuries later, the Northern Wei Dynasty’s Luoyang Qielanji records that an official named Wang Su was teased for his tea consumption in Luoyang by Northerners who did not yet have the habit. Emperor Xiaowen is quoted as asking him, “how could tea juice (茗汁) compare with dairy beverages, how could fish porridge compare with mutton?” Tea was jokingly called a “slave to milk(与酪作奴)” only tolerated by the various Han and nomadic peoples that then built their palaces at the old imperial capital. 

It was up to Lu Yu and later authors to elevate tea such that it could be a respectable feature at any official banquet. Like soup and alcohol before it, tea needed a set of rituals and an ancient pedigree - it needed to shred its more pedestrian associations. Condiments had to be maligned, and a preference for rare and wild high mountain materials had to be established. Like alcohol, soup, and taxes it had to be understood as an immutable fact of life dating back to distant antiquity. In the Tang and Song dynasties, how tea was to be properly enjoyed would be greatly elaborated. Complex games, exclusive tribute teas, ornate accoutrements, and lucrative monopolies would define the era. At the same time, larger and larger swaths of the Chinese population could have access to a beverage which could stimulate one without intoxicating them, and provide a critical nutritional supplement, especially for those in areas where fresh fruit and vegetable were very much seasonal. These basic physiological benefits made tea’s place on the humblest and finest of tables equally inevitable. However, the gap in what was consumed at these tables would only start to narrow a millennium later.   

Further Reading

Wu Juenong. 2005. Commentary on the Classic of Tea. Second Edition. Beijing: China Agricultural Press.

Hang Banqi. Song of Fuyang - Full Chinese Text

Classic of Tea - Full Chinese Text 

Cao Xueqin. Dream of the Red Chamber - Full Chinese Text

Classic of Rites - Full Bilingual Text

Book of Han - Biography of Wei Zhao. Full Chinese Text.

Book of Man. Full Chinese Text.

Luoyang Qielanji. - Book Three. Full Chinese Text.

Sichuan Tea and Ancient Sichuan Language. Chinese Blog

Xu Xifeng. 2022. The Study of the Imperial Diet in Han Dynasty. Master’s Thesis. Central China Normal University.

Zhu Zizhen & Han Jinke. 2000. Woguo Gudai Chalei Shengchan Liangci Dabiange.  Journal of Tea Business.22(4)46-47