The Tea History Timeline [Source , assam tea exchange]
2727 BC
CHINA – The
The Tea History Timeline [Source , assam tea exchange]
| 2727 BC | CHINA – The Emperor Shen Nung discovers tea one day while drinking hot water in his garden. |
| 1200 BC | Tea is served to King Wen (founder of the Zhou dynasty) as evidenced by early documentation of court life. |
| 350 AD | CHINA – Tea plants from the Yunnan Province are planted along the Yangtze river in the Scechwan Province. The cultivation of tea begins. |
| CHINA – The Erh Ya a dictionary of ancient Chinese origin annotated by scholar Kuo P’o, defines tea as beverage made of boiling leaves from a plant “as small as a gardenia, sending forth its leaves even in winter. What is plucked early is called t’u and what is plucked later is called ming (bitter tea).” | |
| 380-400 | A dictionary is published which documents the addition of onions, cinnamon, and orange to tea. |
| 400’s | Tea joins noodles, vinegar, and cabbage as an item of trade |
| 600’s | Chinese character c’ha, meaning tea, comes into use |
| 727 | The Japanese Emperor Shomu receives a gift of China tea from a visiting T’ang court emissary. |
| 729 | JAPAN – The Emperor Shomu serves Chinese tea to visiting monks. The monks are inspired by the tea and decide to grow it in Japan. The monk Gyoki dedicates his entire life to the cultivation of tea in Japan, during which time he built 49 temples, each with a tea garden. |
| 780 | CHINA – The first tax on tea in China, due to its popularity. The first book on tea, the Ch’a Ching (The Classic of Tea), written by the poet Lu Yu is published. |
| Tea drinking becomes very popular at court, inspiring the custom of “Tribute tea”, whereby tea growers “donate” their very best tea to the Emperor and the Imperial court. | |
| Due to its popularity, tea is taxed for the first tax in China. | |
| 794 | Japanese monks plant tea bushes in Kyoto’s Imperial gardens. |
| 900 | Japan is again influenced by Chinese culture, when Japanese scholars return from a visit to China bearing tea. |
| 1107 | The Emperor Hui Tsung (1082-1135) writes about the many aspects of tea in his treatise called Ta Kuan Ch’a Lun. |
| 1191 | JAPAN – The Buddhist abbot Yeisei re-introduces tea to Japan after travels in China. He brings tea seeds and knowledge of Buddhist rituals involving a bowl of shared tea. He also writes the first Japanese book about tea. |
| 1261 | JAPAN – Buddhist monks travel across Japan, spreading the art of tea and the Zen doctrine |
| 1400’s | Tea drinking becomes prevalent among the masses in Japan |
| 1477 | The Japanese Shogun Ashikaga-Yoshimasa builds the first tearoom at his palace in Kyoto. He employs the Buddhist priest Shuko to develop a ceremony around the service of tea. The practice and etiquette of “chanoyu” (“hot water tea”) is born. |
| 1521-1591 | JAPAN – Sen Rikyu, known as the “father of tea” in Japan, codifies the tea ceremony. |
| 1600 | EUROPE – Elizabeth I founded the John Foundation, with the intention of promoting trade with Asia. Chinese ceramics, silks, and exotic spices are much in demand in Europe. |
| 1610 | The Dutch procure tea and Chinese clay teapots from Portuguese traders in Macao, and establish a trading relationship with the Japanese. Tea comes to Europe. |
| 1618 | RUSSIA – Tea is introduced to Russia, when the Chinese embassy visits Moscow, bringing a chest of tea as a gift for the Czar Alexis. |
| 1635 | EUROPE – The “tea heretics” (doctors and university authorities) of Holland argue over the positive and negative effects of tea, while the Dutch continue to enjoy their newfound beverage. |
| 1650/1660 | NORTH AMERICA – A Dutch trader introduces tea to the Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (a small settlement in North America). Later, when the English acquired this colony, they found that the inhabitants of New Amsterdam (or New York as they chose to re-name it) consumed more tea than all of England. |
| 1652 | EUROPE – Tea is introduced to England by the Dutch East India Company. |
| 1658 | For the first time tea is made publicly available at Thomas Garaway’s Coffee House in London. |
| 1660 | England’s first tax on tea, levied at 8 pence for every gallon of tea sold at the coffeehouses. |
| 1662 | King Charles II married the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza, who, not only introduced tea at court, but also brought to England (as part of her dowry), the territories of Bombay and Tangiers. This added strategic impetus to the already-strong monopoly of the John Foundation. |
| 1664 | Tea drinking becomes very fashionable among the aristocracy of England, although the debate continues as to its medicinal value or harm. |
| 1670 | The English begin to make and use silver teapots. |
| 1675 | EUROPE – In Holland, tea is widely available for purchase in common food shops. |
| 1680 | EUROPE – Tea drinking becomes a popular pastime in Europe, as a result of a craze for anything Oriental. The Marquise Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, is recorded to have added milk to her tea. An addition of milk to hot tea was made to prevent the delicate porcelain cup (Oriental influence) from cracking. |
| Tea is introduced to the Scottish aristocracy by the Duchess of York (future wife of King James II) | |
| 1685 | England begins to trade directly with China. Tea and the Chinese word t’e (Amoy dialect) is brought to England directly from the Amoy region. |
| 1689 | RUSSIA – The Trade Treaty of Newchinsk establishes a common border between China and Russia, allowing trade caravans to cross freely. The trade caravans consisting of over 200 camels take over 16 months to cross the 11,000 miles between Moscow and Beijing. As a result, the cost of tea in Russia is high, and is drunk only by those who can afford it. |
| Realizing the potential popularity of tea and the money it could generate, the British Crown levies a 5-shilling per pound tax on dried tea. This will eventually lead to widespread smuggling. | |
| 1698 | Due to popular demand, English potters of Staffordshire begin a local industry, making earthenware teapots, cups and saucers. |
| 1699 | EUROPE – England imports an average of 40,000 pounds of tea. |
| 1707 | Thomas Twinning opens his famous Toms Coffee House in London |
| 1708 | EUROPE – England imports an annual average 240,000 pounds of tea. People of all levels of society now drink tea in England. |
| 1716 | Tea is brought to Canada by the Hudson Bay Company. |
| 1717 | Thomas Twinning converts his coffeehouse to the first teashop “The Golden Lyon”, which becomes the first place for women to meet and socialize in public. |
| 1730’s | EUROPE – The popularity of tea wanes in France, in favor of coffee, wine and chocolate. |
| Now viewed as a valuable commodity, the first Chinese teas are sold at auctions in Europe. | |
| 1750 | Black tea exceeds green tea in popularity in Europe. |
| 1765 | Josiah Wedgewood’s ceramic ware creates a splash and sets a new standard for English teaware. |
| 1767 | England imposes high taxes on tea and other items sent to the American colonists. The colonists, resenting the monopoly that England has over them, begins to smuggle tea in from Holland. |
| 1773 | EUROPE – The John Company and the East India Company merge, forming the New East India Company. This new company had a complete monopoly on all trade and commerce in India and China. Trade with China is expensive however, and England’s solution to its financial problem is opium. They begin to trade opium, (which they could grow cheaply in India) with the Chinese for tea. The Chinese would become addicted to the supply of opium, ensuring a constant supply of cheap tea to the English. |
| The famous Boston Tea Party occurs when American patriots dressed as Mohawk Indians push 342 chests of tea overboard. This act would eventually lead to the American Declaration of Independence of 1776. | |
| 1780 | Tea smuggling is rampant in England as people resort to illegal measures to avoid paying the high tax on tea. |
| 1784 | The grandson of Thomas Twinning persuades the Prime Minister William Pitt to drop the high taxes on tea, not only eliminating smuggling, but making tea an affordable luxury to Brits of all walks of life. |
The Comte de la Rochefoucauld writes:
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| 1789 | NORTH AMERICA – The American Revolution is over, and America begins to trade directly with China. They would eventually break England’s tea monopoly with their faster sailing ships, and honest way of doing business (they paid gold, not Opium for tea). |
| 1800 | Tea gardens become popular haunts for fashionable Londoners. |
| 1818 | The Temperance Movement is founded as a result of rampant alcoholism brought on by the Industrial Revolution. Members seek salvation for the drunken men with “tea and god on their side”. This movement eventually inspired the word “teetotaling”. |
| 1823 | The first Indian tea bushes are “discovered” growing wild in the Assam region of India by British Army Major Robert Bruce. |
| 1826 | The first packaged tea is made available for purchase in England by the Horniman Tea Company. |
| 1827 | The first Chinese tea seeds are planted in Java by an entrepreneurial Dutchman (J.I.L.L. Jacobsen), who smuggled both the seeds and teamen out of China. The Chinese plant did not thrive however, and was later supplanted by the hardier Assam variety. |
| 1834 | The “Tea Committee”, appointed by the Governor-General Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, reports that tea can be successfully grown in India. |
| Experiments with tea planting are conducted in the Darjeeling region of India. | |
| 1838 | The British seriously set about planting and cultivating tea in the Assam region of India. |
| 1839 | The first chests of Assam tea arrive at the London Tea auctions. The British are ecstatic as this means that they are now able to successfully grow their own tea. |
| 1840 | EUROPE – Anna the 7th Duchess of Bedford invents “Afternoon Tea” to abolish the “sinking feeling” she experienced during the long gap between breakfast and dinner. |
| 1842 | CHINA – The Opium Wars end with England winning “the right” to trade opium for tea. |
| 1843 | Tea and ale vie for the place at the breakfast table in England. Brewers lobby the government to increase taxes on tea and spread rumors of its addictive quality, out of fear that tea will become more popular than ale |
| 1850’s | EUROPE – The world’s nations competed with one another in global clipper races to lay claim to the fastest ships. The fast sailing ships would race all the way from China to England, and up the Thames river to the Tea Exchange in London, where they would present the year’s first crop of tea to be auctioned. Steamships would replace these tall ships by 1871. |
| 1851 | Full of “tea pride” the British exhibit their own Assam-grown tea at the Great Exhibition. |
| 1854 | The British introduce tea to Morocco. |
| 1866 | The Great Tea Race begins in Foochow on May 28th, and ends in Gravesend on September 7th. The Taeping wins over the Ariel by 20 minutes. |
| 1867 | Scotsman James Taylor, manager of a coffee plantation in Ceylon, experiments with growing tea, planting both the China and India seed. The Assam seed flourishes and becomes the first commercial tea from Ceylon. |
| 1869 | Ceylon’s coffee industry is devastated by a coffee blight. |
| 1870 | Clipper ships are outdated by the development of faster steamers. |
| 1878 | The Assam tea seed is planted in Java. It thrives over the earlier planted China variety. |
| Tea is planted in Malawi, and becomes the first to be cultivated in Africa | |
| 1880 | Scottish grocer Thomas Lipton buys numerous tea plantations in Ceylon, and goes on to revolutionize tea production in Ceylon. |
| 1894 | The first Lyons Tea Shop opens in London. Lyons became famous for the saying “tea for two”, meaning a pot of tea for a two-pence. |
| 1898 | Tea is introduced to Iran. |
| 1900 | RUSSIA – The Trans-Siberian Railroad is completed, ending camel caravan trade between Russia and China. In Russia, tea has become the national beverage (besides Vodka). |
| Tea is planted in the Botanical gardens at Entebbe, Uganda. | |
| In England, teashops become the popular place for the working class to take their afternoon tea. By this time Lyon’s has over 250 teashops, and taking tea, as meal away from home becomes a pert of daily life. | |
| The proprietor of the Aerated Bread Company begins to serve tea in the back of her shop to her favorite customers. Her back room becomes such a popular place to take afternoon tea, that the company decides to open an actual teashop, the first of a chain of shops that would come to be known as the ABC teashop. | |
| 1903 | Tea is planted in Kenya at Limuru. |
| 1904 | NORTH AMERICA – The first “iced tea” was served at the St. Louis World’s Fair. A certain tea merchant had planned to give away samples of his tea to the fair-goers, and when unable to think of anything else to do when a heat wave threatened his plans, he dumped ice into his hot tea. |
| 1906 | The Book of Tea is written by Okakura Kakuzo, thus introducing the west to the Japanese Tea Ceremony and its history. |
| 1908 | NORTH AMERICA – A New York tea merchant named Thomas Sullivan packages his samples of tea in silk sachets, as a way to cut down on his costs. His customers, mistaking his intentions, like the convenience of simply dunking the sachet into hot water, and begin to order their tea in this fashion. The teabag is born. |
| 1914 | British workers are given tea breaks throughout the day as this is thought to improve their productivity. |
| British soldiers are given tea as part of their rations. | |
| 1950 | The Japanese Grand Tea Master (Urasenke School), Sositsu Sen devotes his life to spreading the Way of Tea around the world. |
| 1953 | The paper teabag is developed by the Tetley tea Company, thus transforming tea-drinking habits around the world. |
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