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# Tea

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A beverage. An infusion made by steeping the dried leaves or buds of the shrub Camelia sinensis in boiling water. Tea may include other herbs, spices, or fruit flavors. An herbal tea--that is, a tea with no tea leaves in it--is more properly called an infusion or tisane.

Tea is served both hot and iced, sometimes with lemon?, milk, honey?, or sugar. Recently, Boba milk tea from Taiwan becomes an extremely popular drink among young people. The Asian fad spreaded to the USA in 2000. (see [news])

Tea is grown in China, India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Japan, Kenya.

Two main types of tea are [green tea]? (not fermented) and [black tea]? (fermented), with Oolong? being in-between.

Black tea is usually named after the region of origin: Darjeeling?, Assam?, Ceylon? etc. Most green teas however have kept their traditional japanese or chinese names: Genmaicha?, Hojicha?, Pouchong?, etc.

Products of some other plant species are also sometimes subsumed under the term tea. Most noticable of them is Yerba Mate.

Tea was first encountered by the Portugese in 1560 in Japan and was soon imported to Europe where it became popular in France and the Netherlands. English use of tea seems to date from about 1650. The Boston Tea Party was an act of uprising in which Boston residents destroyed British tea in 1773. The high demand of tea in Britain caused a huge trade deficit with China. The British set up their own tea plantation in colonial India to provide their own supply. They also tried to balance the trade deficit by selling opium to the Chinese, which later led to the [opium war]? in 1838-1842.

The English word tea came from t'e in Amoy (Xiamen, Fujian) from southern China. The British shipped tea from southern China to Europe via the sea route. One can tell which trade route each culture first exposed to tea based on how tea is called in each language. For example, tea is known as cha in Russian or some northern European languages. That indicates that they didn't get their tea via the sea. They most probably got their tea via the land route through the silkroad in the north. Tea is called Cha in Mandarin.

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Last edited August 14, 2001 3:55 pm (diff)
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