Despite having spent my childhood in Hong Kong, I grew up knowing close to nothing about Chinese tea. Sure, I enjoyed varieties such as Tie Guan Yin (Iron Buddha) and Longjing (Dragon Well) as palate-cleansers with dim sum, or stole sips from my father’s brews at home. But it always seemed too serious, ceremonial and daunting to really get into; and after studying in London, I was instead drawn to the caffeine kick of an Americano or the ease of PG Tips. It was only when visiting my parents recently – and admitting, not for the first time, that coffee put me in an anxious frenzy – I decided to learn the basics.
A number of accounts detail the origins of Chinese tea. One traces its roots back to around 3,000BC, when legend says tea leaves fell into water boiled for Emperor Shen-Nung. Juyan Webster, the London-based founder of The Chinese Tea Company, places the drink’s discovery closer to 4,000 years ago, when herbalists foraging for medicinal plants came upon Camellia sinensis and recorded its invigorating properties. Over the years, locals identified methods of harvesting, preserving and brewing tea for the best flavour. During the Tang dynasty, which spanned AD618 to 906, tea was China’s national drink; it soon made its way to Japan and Korea, and by the 1800s, tea was introduced to the Middle East via the silk road, as well as Britain and its colonies India, Sri Lanka and Kenya following the Opium Wars.
