When tea first appeared in Britain, it was an exotic and unknown beverage, and was sold as a herbal tonic. Yet within two centuries it had become – as it remains – an indispensable part of British life.

The typical British ‘cuppa’ is brewed from black Indian tea leaves and served with milk and sugar. Indian teas may be the most common in Britain, but the origins of tea and the culture of tea-drinking lie in China, where the wild tea plant was first domesticated. Even today, the words for tea in almost every global language can be traced back to the Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese ‘cha’, or ‘te’ in the Amoy dialect of south-eastern China.

Origins of tea

No one is sure exactly when tea-drinking began but according to Chinese legend it was discovered by the Divine Farmer, one of the mythological ancestors of Chinese civilisation, after some wild tea leaves drifted into a pot of water he was boiling outdoors.

Cup of tea with lemon

In the early days, the Chinese boiled their tea leaves with water and other ingredients such as salt and ginger; later they ground the dried leaves to a powder and whipped them up with hot water. It was only in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that it became common practice to infuse the loose tea leaves in hot water in teapots, and then to pour the infused liquid into bowls to drink. Over the centuries, China developed an extraordinary tea culture, comparable in its sophistication with the wine culture of the West.

Tea in Britain

The first tea seen in Europe was brought back by Dutch and Portuguese traders in the early 17th century. Within decades the East India Company was importing small quantities directly to England.

In the early days it was a rare and extravagant product, made expensive by hefty taxes. The Portuguese wife of Charles II, Catherine of Braganza, introduced the elegant rituals of tea-drinking to the English court in the mid-17th century, and soon the ladies of the aristocracy were offering tea to their guests in imported Chinese porcelain cups.

Wealthy ladies kept their finest leaves under lock and key, and there was a rampant black market in smuggled leaves. Unscrupulous traders sold fake and adulterated teas, some of them made from the leaves of sloe and other native trees, coloured with poisonous verdigris or logwood in an attempt to make them look real.

The earliest imported teas had been sold as infusions in the new coffee houses of the 17th century, clubby establishments that catered solely to men. Thomas Twining opened the first tea shop for ladies in London in 1717 and, before long, tea gardens were offering entertainment to people of both genders and all social classes.

Types of tea

All true teas are made from the processed leaves of varieties of the tea bush, Camellia sinensis, a shrub that was first domesticated in south-western China. The raw leaves are affected by the soil in which they grow, the climate, the weather and the time of picking, much like grapes that are used to make wine. There is also a vast range of methods for processing the leaves, involving various ways of wilting, bruising, heating and oxidising.

There are countless varieties of tea, which fall into three broad categories.

• Oolong tea: the raw leaves are sun-wilted and then bruised, which exposes their juices to the air, so the leaves oxidise and start to turn brown like a cut fruit. For Oolong teas, they are allowed to oxidise only partially, giving them a rich, floral flavour. ‘Iron Buddha’ tea is a kind of oolong.
• Black teas: these are made from leaves that are allowed to oxidise for longer, giving the strong, dark tastes found in familiar Indian teas like Assam and Darjeeling.
• Green tea: the most common in China, green teas are made from unoxidised leaves, which are simply heated, rolled and then dried. Dragon Well from Hangzhou is one of China’s most famous green teas.

Beyond these three main types, there is a wealth of particular varieties:

• White teas are made from the downy buds of a few varieties of tea, which are simply wilted and then baked or sun-dried.
• Pu’er (known as ‘bolay’ in Cantonese) leaves are compressed into bricks and aged until they have a musty, bookish fragrance. They are prized as a tonic and an aid to digestion, and vintage pu’er is sold for astonishing prices in China.
• Other tea leaves can be infused with the fragrance of flowers, as in the jasmine tea found in Chinese restaurants in Britain.

Choosing tea

To make the most of the delicate pleasures of tea, begin by seeking out specialist suppliers. There are now several companies in the UK who sell well-sourced varieties of fine Chinese, Indian, Japanese and sometimes Korean teas, and who will be able to advise you on how to brew the leaves.

Different varieties should be brewed at different temperatures: boiling water, for example, can ruin the taste of a delicate green tea. The finest teas are almost invariably sold as loose leaves, rather than in teabags. They should be stored in dry, airtight jars. Some teas keep better than others: good Pu’er can improve over decades, while Dragon Well green tea is best used up within a few months of

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