500,000 B.C. Peking Man has the ability to keep fire pits going to boil water and meat. Fire, along with an abundance of tea in the region possibly leads to a concoction of some sort. 3000 B.C. A wind blows tea leaves into Shen Nong's vat of boiling water, and tea is born. Shen Nong is a chieftain

later credited as the father of agriculture and herbal medicine. 519 B.C. Prince Siddhartha makes pilgrimage to China from India. According to legend, he vows as a measure of his faith never to sleep. One day he grew very tired and fell asleep, when he awoke he was so ashamed he ripped off his eyelids and threw them to the ground, where they mysteriously took root and sprouted into tea trees.

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      Tea is known as chuan, jia, ming, she, tu and cha, and is made by boiling the fresh leaves to make a very bitter tasting decoction, which is a sign of good tea 350 Tea becomes defined in the Erh Ya, a dictionary, as a "beverage" as opposed to a medicine or a tonic 400 True porcelain

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invented The rise of the tea house as a business and social center 733 - 804 Lu Yu (often called the Father of Tea) codifies the cultivation, harvesting, manufacture, preparation, temperature of water used, and type of water used for tea in his Cha Jing (The Classic of Tea) written between 760 and published in 780. Tea is steamed and crushed to a paste, plum juice added as a glue. Then the tea was poured into molds, compressed and baked until dry. It is very popular at this time to add sweet onions, ginger, jujube, orange peel, dogwood berries, cloves, peppermint and salt.

      The Tang Dynasty is the era of the "Tea Master" Tea usually served in a wide bowl, called the zhan, usually in celadon or white Tea given it's own character in the Chinese language Dry tea leaves are ground to powder and whipped in hot water with a bamboo wisk until frothy. The Japanese followed this powdered tea tradition, forming the basis for the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony today. Tea is no longer drunk with added fruits and spices in a dark brown or black glazed saucer shaped dish called the qian. Development of loose tea, primarily made for export and the process of chaoqing, 'roasting out the green', (i.e. torrefaction, a word used in reference to coffee) allowing the true taste of tea to finally come out. 803 Two Japanese Buddhist monks (Saicho and Eichu) visit China to study and bring tea seeds back to Japan 1760 Germans discover secret of porcelain,

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but no one besides China can produce tea 1840 - 1842 Britain declares war on China, first Opium War China loses and is forced to pay 21 million silver dollars for destroyed opium, to open the ports of Canton, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Xiamen, and hand over possession of Hong Kong 1773 Boston Tea Party 1904 St. Louis World Fair iced tea is served to promote Indian tea 1908 NY importer Thomas Sullivan sends a sample of tea in a silk bag, and the person infuses the bag by accident 1650 Tea is introduced to America 1658 Tea arrives in Britain 1769 British demand for tea reaches 100,000 tons, all paid for with silver 1793 British ambassador Lord McCartney goes to China to seek trade advantages and stop the flow of silver out of Britain. He obtains tea seeds which the Empire plants in Calcutta, beginning the cultivation of tea in India. To stem the flow of silver leaving Britain, British traders trade opium for silver and silver for tea, smuggling over 40,000 chests annually into China by 1838. 1850 British traders smuggle over 50,000 chests of Opium into China 1848 Robert Fortune brings 2000 tea plants and 17,000 sprouting seeds from China to India. He breaks the news to the west that green tea and red tea come from the same plant. Britain markets the tea grown in India from Robert Fortune's tea plants as Empire Tea as Americans and British abandon the Chinese tea market. 1839 First Assam grown tea sells in public Development of the

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process of allowing the tea to oxidize naturally before spot heating it, thus the invention of red tea, which becomes known in the west as black tea. Teapot invented, using the famous clay from Yixing, Jiangsu Province Development of the great idea of infusing tea: tea is placed in porcelain, water added and infused for small period of time (three exhalations). Tea is drunk from a flared rim cup with matching lids and saucers called the zhong, now known as the gaiwan. 1610 Tea reaches Europe on Dutch ships from Java, where they meet Chinese traders in 'te' 1618 Tea reaches Russia via camel caravan, taking about 18 months 1914 World War I begins 1917 Russian Revolution begins 1912 The end of Dynastic China. Sun Yet Sen establishes the Republic of China, amid great political unrest 1924 China exports 34,000 tons of tea, British Empire (India and Ceylon) export 240,000 tons 1934 Japan invades China 1939 World War II begins 1930s-1940s Civil war in China between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai Shek; power struggle, famine, flood, inflation and Japanese aggression wreak havoc on China. Tea production slows down to 4000 tons. 1950s-1970s Communism under Mao Zedong: teahouses are shut down as potential petri dishes of intellectual activity 1970s Teahouses start making a comeback Taiwan tea growers start to develop special Oolongs and start to compete on the global market 1989 China tea export rises to 203,000 tons as United States becomes China's second largest customer 1982 Chinese production of tea surpasses previous set high in 1914 1984 Chinese export of tea surpasses previous high set in 1886, becoming the third in world tea exports 1888 China exports 110,000 tons of tea, British Empire (India and Ceylon) export 70,000 tons 674 Daughter of Cui Ning, a military official, invents the saucer to hold her hot bowl of tea 1100 B.C. Chinese texts mention the use of tea as a tribute Tea is steamed (in an attempt to remove the bitter taste) and then compressed in order to allow it to be transported to other provinces. Tea is made by baking the compressed brick, pounding it into tiny pieces and putting them in a porcelain pot, and then adding boiling water, onions, ginger, and orange pieces. 1,700,000 B.C. 1124 - 222 B.C. Zhou Dynasty 221 - 207 B.C. Qin Dynasty 1766 - 1123 B.C. Shang Dynasty 206 B.C. - 220 A.D. Han Dynasty 220 - 280 Three Kingdoms 420 - 588 Six Dynasties 581 - 618 Sui Dynasty 618 - 907 Tang Dynasty 907 - 979 Five Dynasties 960 - 1126 Song Dynasty 1271 - 1368 Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty 1368 - 1644 Ming Dynasty 1644 - 1912 Qing (Manchu) Dynasty 1912 a brief history of Chinese tea Sources: Kit Chow & Ione Kramer. All the Tea in China; John C. Evans. Tea in China, The History of China?s National Drink; Jonathan D. Spence. The Search for Modern China; Lu Yu. The Classic of Tea, translated by Francis Ross Carpenter.

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                                                                     （伍崇岳）