Tea!!

 May 21st is International Tea Day.  On this day the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation leads world wide celebrations in honour of tea.  Which is proof that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation is scratching to find things to do with its time.  Nevertheless to mark this auspicious occasion this blog has decided to provide its eager readers with a brief history of this famous plant.

Tea was invented in China in the late 11th century for use as a packing material.  Proving useful in the role it wasn't long before every parcel in China was wrapped in tea before dispatch.  Tea was the bubble wrap of its age.  The concept of tea as a beverage was discovered by accident when several parcels of hot water were found on arrival to have been "contaminated" by the tea they were packed in.  A lengthy legal process followed and the subsequent lawsuits were instrumental in bringing down the Later Song Dynasty.

The popularity of tea plunged as bitter wars were fought over water quality and in a desperate attempt to rid themselves of the problem Chinese officials started insisting that every British trading ship had to carry a certain amount of tea away from the troubled empire.  Most of this tea was dumped overboard the minute the ships were out of sight of the Chinese coast but some remained in the nooks and crannies of the vessels on their arrival in England.  Somewhat at a loss officials of the East India Company decided to sell the stuff on the grounds that people will buy anything if it can be marketed as "exotic".  With tea's reputation as a packing material irredeemably ruined the company came up with the bright idea of promoting the stuff as a beverage.

The popularity of tea exploded among an English population which was looking for a easy way to differentiate themselves from the French.  Suddenly England was importing every leaf of tea that China could send.  Even this wasn't enough for the tannin crazed population of Britain and soon tea plantations were springing up everywhere that the British controlled (except Britain which, ironically, was too cold, damp and boring to grow tea).  

Somewhat concerned about their balance of trade with China the East India Company came up with the elegant idea of selling opium to the Chinese in exchange (that is actually true).  Now with two empire's populations hopelessly addicted to their products the Company should have been making out like bandits.  Strangely they went bankrupt but the tea trade (and the opium trade) survived their demise.

Lest the British lose their taste for the fabled green leaf the Chinese attempted to diversify their market by selling tea to the Tibetans and the Russians.  The Tibetans took one look at the tea and promptly dumped yak butter into it which is only my fourth favourite thing to do with yak butter.  Two of them absolutely cannot be mentioned in a family friendly blog like this.  Check out my alternate blog "1001 Things to do With a Yak" on the dark web for more details.  Parental discretion recommended.

After an unsuccessful attempt to burn the tea the Russians decided to drink it anyway and so a third empire fell to the insidious power of tea.  Of course the Russians messed it up by dropping slices of lemon into it and serving it in glasses.  The British meanwhile came up with the deliciously ironic idea of serving it in china.  Neither the Russians or the British were quite mad enough to involve yak butter at any stage of the process. 

The superpower rivalry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries between Russia and Great Britain can be boiled down to a desire to dominate the world's tea trade.  The British hit on the idea of conquering everywhere whose climate could be even remotely considered appropriate for the growing of tea and soon indigenous populations everywhere were labouring in the drug plantations of their tea addled overlords.  

The Russians on the other hand decided to try and control the trade routes that brought tea to the world by conquering the famed silk road.  This was due to an unfortunate error from one of their earliest traders.  The Russian work "Zschyk" meaning "tea" was confused with the word "Chyszk" which means "silk".  The Russian irritation when they discovered they had spent a fortune conquering some of the lowest rent territory in the world on the basis of a mistranslation had to be seen to be believed.  Still this did mean that their empire now shared a rather long border with China so the Russians smuggled the tea across it and tried to pretend that had been their plan all along.

 In these more civilised times of course former colonies, now proudly independent nations market their tea to the world regardless of the impotent grumbles of both the British and the Russians.  One of them, Sri Lanka, lobbied the UN to get an International Tea Day.  One can only assume the UN owed them a favour.

In honour of this auspicious day I shall make, drink and enjoy a cup of tea and honesty compels me to admit that despite my thoroughly British heritage it shall be Russian Caravan.  Yak butter optional.