History of Tea: Britain’s stolen brew

You're Dead to Me

This episode of 'You're Dead to Me' explores the global history of tea, tracing its journey from ancient China to becoming Britain's nationa

Key takeaways

Tea originated in China from the Camellia sinensis plant, cultivated in mountainous regions with specific climatic conditions.
The term 'black tea' is a misnomer; it's actually called 'red tea' in China due to its color when brewed.

Main topics

Origins of tea in ancient China
Colonialism and the British Empire's role in spreading tea production

Notable quotes

"Black tea is red tea, basically. It gets a lot of sunshine." - Professor Yangwen Zheng

Conclusion

Tea's journey from a Chinese tradition to Britain's national beverage is deeply

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Speaker 6 (0:06) in a world where swords were sharp. And Speaker 1 (0:09) hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians. Me, Matt Lewis. And me, Dr. Eleanor Janaga, dive headfirst into the mud, blood, and very strange customs of the Middle Ages. So for plagues, Speaker 6 (0:24) crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (0:40) Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are bustling back to the 19th century and raising the temperature to boiling point as we learn all about the history of Britain's favourite hot bevy, tea. And joining our time-travelling tea party are two very special guests. In History Corner, she's Professor of Chinese History at Manchester University, where she specialises in Ming and Qing era trade and economic history. She's the author of a number of books, including The Recent Railway Imperialism in China, a political biography. And of course, you'll remember her from our lovely, funny episode on the Dowager Empress Xuxi. It's Professor Yang Wen-Chung. Welcome back, Yang Wen. Thank you. And in Comedy Corner... He's an award-winning comedian, presenter, actor, impressionist and writer. What a CV. You'll have heard him all over Radio 4 on programmes like The Now Show and all over the TV on TV shows like Mock the Week, Not Going Out, Have I Got News For You, Taskmaster, Fleabag and the brilliant sitcom Outnumbered. He's also the presenter of The Great British Dig, History In Your Back Garden. It's Hugh Dennis. Welcome, Hugh. Thank you very much. Lovely to be here. What a CV. You've done all sorts. Speaker 4 (1:51) I have done all sorts. And there seems to be absolutely no sort of common theme in any of it. Well, funny. Well, funny, I suppose. Funny, hopefully. Are you Speaker 3 (2:00) sort of a big fan of history as a general rule? Do you like history books? Do you like history programmes? You've presented history programmes? Speaker 4 (2:06) Yeah. And I'm a man of a certain age who's become fascinated by history. You walk into bookshops and immediately... Well, it happens to everyone. And it's sort of... I think it genuinely does happen to everyone. And I was thinking yesterday that my dad, who also loved history, you know, sort of men of a certain age get fascinated by their own family tree. So he started researching the family tree and he did an amazing bit of work on the family tree and he got us back to about 1635. Wow. He got the denizens back to 1635 and he presented this chart to me and my brother of all the denizens who've ever existed that anyone can find. And we both looked and thought, that is amazing. It was a vast thing. And then I looked at my own date of birth and you've got it wrong. Speaker 3 (2:54) It was Speaker 4 (2:55) only a year. Speaker 3 (2:57) But Speaker 4 (2:57) it Speaker 3 (2:57) seems significant. And what about tea? Are you a tea drinker? You asked for coffee on the way in this morning. Well, it's Speaker 4 (3:03) a Speaker 3 (3:03) time of day thing for me. Speaker 4 (3:04) So I have coffee for... I have two cups of coffee a day and the rest of the day I'm drinking tea. Okay. And it's slightly too early for tea for me. Is it too early for tea, Yang Wang? Speaker 2 (3:13) No, I don't drink coffee, so I only drink tea. Speaker 4 (3:16) Okay. So Speaker 2 (3:17) coffee is tea for me in the morning. No Speaker 4 (3:19) alternatives to tea? Water? Speaker 2 (3:21) No, water, juice, yeah. Speaker 4 (3:23) Okay, all right. But no coffee? Speaker 2 (3:25) No. Speaker 3 (3:28) Never. So, what do you know? Speaker 3 (3:34) But that brings us on to the first segment of the podcast. It's called the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener or viewer, hello, what you might know about today's subject. And you definitely know what tea is. Everyone knows what tea is. After all, in the UK, it's estimated that 76 million cups of tea are drunk every single day. And that's just me and my wife. So tea is consumed all over the world in a variety of ways. You'll surely have heard of green tea, black tea, matcha, oolong, and now, of course, bubble. I don't know what it is, but I've heard about it. And in terms of its history, maybe you're imagining Regency ladies sipping tea from their delicate bone china in their drawing rooms. Perhaps the elaborate tea ceremonies of Imperial China in Japan. Perhaps you went with pop culture memories of the Mad Hatter Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland, or the famous Southern Sweet Tea drunk in steel magnolias, which Dolly Parton, of course, called the house wine of the South. And also, you can drink tea in space, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard famously ordered tea. Earl Grey. Hot. So, when was tea first drunk? How did it make its way to Britain? And is the nation's favourite drink really made from dust? Let's find out. Right, Professor Yang Wen, we'll start with the basics. Tea is from a plant. Indeed. What plant? Speaker 2 (4:52) It's called Camellia sinensis and it's a shrub, basically. Okay. Perennial and it grows... in probably 1,000 to 7,000 above sea level. So that's a wide range. Feet Speaker 4 (5:08) or mesas? Speaker 2 (5:10) Feet, yeah. And some of the shrubs have yellow flowers. Some don't, depends on the species, because there's variations in between. And if you go to southern China, it's all over the place. Speaker 3 (5:27) Really? Speaker 2 (5:28) Yes, it's all over the place. There are different species within the tea Speaker 3 (5:32) family. So it's not growing in lowlands. It needs height. It Speaker 2 (5:36) depends. It depends because the higher you get, then you get, you know, in the mountains, you get mist. Speaker 6 (5:44) So Speaker 2 (5:44) that mist moisture makes a difference to the tea. Then if you grow on the lowland, You get a lot of sunshine. Of course, the soil makes a difference as to the potency of the plant. So it depends. Mostly it's on sloping mountains if you go and visit China. Speaker 4 (6:05) And is it like vines? Does it need south-facing slopes? Speaker 2 (6:10) Yeah, because you face the sun and then you get the sunshine. And the moisture in the mountains, the mist and rainwater also nourishes it. So that's why you have green tea and yellow tea and white tea and black tea. Black tea is red tea, basically. It gets a lot of sunshine. Speaker 3 (6:34) Black tea is red tea? Speaker 2 (6:35) Yeah. Speaker 3 (6:37) Why are they calling it red tea? I don't know. Yeah. You've said black, white. Yellow. And there's also oolong. Speaker 2 (6:45) Oolong and purer. What's Speaker 3 (6:48) purer? Speaker 2 (6:48) Purer is more famous in Yunnan, in southern China, close to Burma and Vietnam. Oolong is more in southeast China, like Fujian, across from Taiwan. Taiwan has a lot of oolong too. Okay. Speaker 3 (7:01) Yeah, so it's Speaker 2 (7:01) regional variation. So Speaker 3 (7:03) there are six types of this plant, six types of tea. Speaker 2 (7:06) Yeah, you could say that. Okay. Yeah, green, black, you call black, we call red. And then yellow, white. Yellow is very rare. White is also rare. Okay. Yeah. And then the regional variations. But there are more variations than that. And that doesn't include the royalty. Speaker 4 (7:27) And what about all the versions that we have? sort of like, I'm desperately trying to think, like an Earl Grey or something. Where does that fit in? I think your Earl Speaker 2 (7:37) Grey comes from Africa. I love Speaker 4 (7:40) your Earl Grey. And Speaker 2 (7:42) it's pirated from China to India and then from India to Africa. The tea we drink in Britain are cut into pieces. That is not the way to drink tea. You should see the leaves. Speaker 2 (7:59) Plus what Robert Fortune stole from China. It's not the best tea. We'll Speaker 3 (8:05) get to that. We'll get to all Speaker 2 (8:06) of Speaker 3 (8:06) that. Okay, so it's quite confusing. Speaker 2 (8:08) But only when you drink the whole thing, you get the whole ritual, you get the body, the whole thing, not chopped. Speaker 3 (8:15) No, yeah. And the tea Speaker 2 (8:17) bags. Yeah, it's too bad. Speaker 3 (8:20) And the processing also breaks down into there's leaf. Speaker 2 (8:24) Yes. Speaker 3 (8:25) Then there's broken leaf. Speaker 2 (8:26) Yes. Speaker 3 (8:27) And then there's two more. Speaker 2 (8:28) Yes, there's fannings, there's dust. Yeah. So the leftovers. Okay. Sorry to say that. So Speaker 3 (8:35) leaf, broken leaf, fannings and dust. We probably wouldn't drink that much tea if it was called dust. Speaker 3 (8:43) Well, Speaker 4 (8:44) there are various, you know, fairly popular forms of dust, I think. Sure. But coffee is dust. How would you strain the dust? I mean, how do you stop it? Because dust must presumably have, you know, you must get bits in your mouth. Speaker 2 (8:58) Yeah, you can sift it. You can sift it. But in China, we don't drink dust. We drink leaves. Speaker 4 (9:04) We're doing it wrong here. Speaker 2 (9:05) Yeah, Speaker 3 (9:07) but Speaker 4 (9:07) I didn't mention dust, did I? Yeah. But who drinks dust then? We do. Speaker 2 (9:12) You do? This is what we do. We drink the dusty Speaker 3 (9:15) fannings. Yeah. Which sounds like a kind of country and western singer, doesn't it? Speaker 2 (9:18) Yeah, you put it in a bag that, yeah. Speaker 3 (9:22) Okay, so we're drinking the dust, we're drinking the fannings. Yang Wen, can we start with some history? When did people in China first experiment with dunking these leaves into hot water? Because that's the process of creating teas. You take a plant and you boil it. Speaker 2 (9:37) Yeah. There's a myth, a yellow emperor is sitting there boiling water under the tree and then the leaves drops and then here's the tea. But I think in reality, in history, I think the origins has something to do with Chinese herbal medicine because Chinese people believe every herb, every... every grass, everything, every vegetable has medicinal effects. And tea was known for keeping you awake and for making your mind clear. And it was said to cure a lot of problems like stomach ache, you know, kidney stone, whatever. So I think the real origin has something to do with history, medicine, rather than the emperor sitting there, the tree leaves. We have Speaker 4 (10:25) an equivalent one, don't we? We have Isaac Newton. Sydney and being hit on the head by an apple. That's true. But he didn't invent cider at that point. He discovered gravity. Speaker 2 (10:35) Well, that's probably more important. I don't know. Speaker 3 (10:38) I mean, the Yellow Emperor, we're talking four and a half thousand years ago. Way back in the Bronze Age. The story goes that wind just blew some tea leaves into his hot water. And he was like, hmm, this is tasty. Would you keep drinking if wind randomly blew a shrub into your mug? No, I do Speaker 4 (10:53) genuinely quite often think about how many people died finding the edible bits of plants. Yeah. Because thousands of people must have died going, why don't you, these potatoes look nice, why don't you have the leaves? I'll have the body of it. Yeah. And then, you know, there must have been an element of trial and error, but I don't think I would. No, I think I'd go and get a strainer of some sort and make a new cup. Speaker 3 (11:18) Yes, I agree. If something blew into my mug, I wouldn't go, maybe this is delicious. There is another myth about how tea was made, or rather how tea made its way from China to Japan. I mean, Yang Yiming, it's quite a dramatic myth. Speaker 2 (11:32) Yeah. We have Speaker 3 (11:33) a Buddhist monk trying to meditate. Speaker 2 (11:36) Right, keep himself awake so he keeps drinking tea. Buddhism went to Japan from China. Oh, okay. Yeah, during the Tang Dynasty. So most of the Buddhist monks would have to come to China to be trained. Speaker 4 (11:49) And Speaker 2 (11:49) so that's where he learned to drink tea. And to keep himself awake, keep praying all the time, he would cut his eyelids. Speaker 2 (11:58) So that's the myth. He Speaker 3 (11:59) would cut his eyelids. Yeah, he sliced them off. Speaker 2 (12:01) Yeah. And Speaker 3 (12:02) the myth goes that after seven years of trying to be sleepless in devotion, he cut off his eyelids so he wouldn't fall asleep. He threw them to the ground. And that is where a tea plant miraculously grew. Speaker 2 (12:11) Yeah, that's a myth. So Speaker 3 (12:13) he had Speaker 2 (12:13) seeds Speaker 3 (12:14) in his eyelids. Slicing off your eyelids. It's an eye-opening history. But there we go. So, Yangim, you've said... You've said that tea was regularly consumed during the Western Han Dynasty. So Han Dynasty, where is that in history? Is that sort of the first emperor? Right Speaker 2 (12:31) after. So it's 2,000 years ago, 2,200 years ago. I think the real history probably existed before then. It's because after the first emperor, we have records. We have history keeping records so that then you know. We also know that they taxed, government taxed. So that's why we know, say, at least it definitely began to be very popular during the Qing Han dynasty. Okay, Speaker 3 (12:59) so that's our earliest historical record, but we think it's older. And how are people consuming it? Are they putting it in a mug and drinking it or are they chewing the leaves? Speaker 2 (13:06) You know, it's boiled in a big... Big pan, just everybody use bowl and, you know, normally you use a bowl and you drink the whole bowl. Speaker 3 (13:13) But you can chew the leaves, can't you? You Speaker 2 (13:14) can, you can. So, yeah, it's, yeah, it's, but never, you never chop them into slices, no, yeah. Speaker 4 (13:21) And you would be absolutely horrified. Chinese would be absolutely horrified that we put milk in. Speaker 2 (13:27) Oh, don't even mention that. Speaker 4 (13:30) You've done Speaker 2 (13:30) it now, Speaker 4 (13:31) Hugh. Yeah, Speaker 3 (13:31) because the Speaker 2 (13:32) milk and sugar makes something else. It's no longer tea. No, I still don't understand that. I came to this country in 1996. It's like, what are you doing? Speaker 3 (13:46) I'm so sorry. So people could... Boil the tea and let the leaves unfurl. They could chew it. Would they add anything else? Would they flavour the tea? Could you put in other herbs? Speaker 2 (13:57) Yes, you can. You can put scallion. Speaker 3 (14:00) Scallion, okay. Yeah, you Speaker 2 (14:01) can put ginger. Right. You can put orange juice or anything because it's like today, you know. That's all Speaker 4 (14:09) right, but milk? Yeah. No. Scallion? What is scallion, by the way? Speaker 2 (14:13) Scallion, it's the Chinese onion. Speaker 4 (14:15) Oh, in onions? Yeah. Speaker 2 (14:17) It's very... You can put onion Speaker 4 (14:18) in your tea, but milk is a no-no.