Tea is said to be the universal beverage. Quite apart from being a pleasant and refreshing drink, tea is believed to elevate mood, relieve fatigue, enhance mental alertness, improve gastric functions, and to have germicidal, analgesic and antipyretic effects.

There are many legends about the discovery of tea. The most ancient is the story of the Emperor Shen Nung (2737 BC), who was sitting in the shade of a bush when some leaves fell into a saucepan of boiling water. The resulting brew was tasty, refreshing and relaxing. He named the drink "tai" and tea was born.

From the sacred gardens of China, where tea was originally cultivated for the exclusive use of the imperial household, to the vast plantations of Assam, and Nilgiris in India, Kericho in Kenya, Kandy in Sri Lanka, in Indonesia, Taiwan, Malawi, Argentina, Papua New Guinea, Turkey and Georgia, the tea industry has spread to almost 45 countries around the world. It provides employment for millions of people, and a livelihood for millions more in ancillary industries such as transport, shipping, warehousing, restaurants, pottery and porcelain manufacturing, advertising, banking and so on.

Ritual Offering:

Tea drinking has been the traditional custom of hospitality in China for several thousand years. The Japanese learnt about tea cultivation from China in the twelfth century, and refined the art of brewing and serving this beverage into a tea ceremony. Tea is considered a sacred offering: the ritual of offering a bowl of tea to a guest has become almost a tradition in these lands, and is closely linked to the rise of Zen Buddhism.

By 700 A.D. the trade in tea was flourishing. Nomadic people, living beyond China's borders, carried it with their caravans into Russia, Turkey, and finally all of Europe and England. Tea houses became established in the large cities and, over the years, tea became a staple daytime drink whether at home, in tea houses, or at work.

In England, tea drinking was popularized in the eighteenth century by Dr. Samuel Johnson, who took it strong, with a little milk and a lump of sugar. This style became common for all tea drinking in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America.

The demand for tea had grown so great that governments imposed a heavy tax on the commodity as a source of revenue. In fact, tea spawned the birth of a nation when the American colonists of New England revolted against the tax imposed by King George, and a raiding party in the guise of Mohawk Indians dumped a vast cargo of tea into Boston Harbour. The American Revolutions and War of Independence had begun.

East India Company:

The British East India Company had established its primacy as the colonial power in the Indian Sub-continent, and gained supremacy in the tea trade between China and England, by the time it came under the direct control of the British Parliament following the Commutation Act of 1784. In 1793, a mission headed by Lord Mcartney was sent to the Imperial Court of China to negotiate favourable terms for trade in tea, as China had the monopoly in production. The Chinese did not agree to free trade.

The East India Company became increasingly engaged in exporting opium into China by employing private agents. This was proving a lucrative trade. The opium war ensued, and several trade concessions were extracted from the Imperial Chinese Government by the British, including lease for the Island of Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Lord Bentinck, Governor General of India, pursued the idea of cultivating tea in India. A tea committee was formed in 1834, and botanists were sent to China to obtain tea plants for trials at the Botanical Garden in Calcutta.

Major Robert Bruce discovered wild tea plants growing in Assam. Leaves from these were used by the local Singpho chieftains for preparing a brew similar to black tea. Charles Alexander Bruce joined his brother in Assam and began the first experiments in cultivating plantations for tea. He was successful. The Assam Company Limited, founded in 1839, obtained a charter from the British Parliament, the first concessions to vast tracts of land in the dense jungles, and the sole right to commence the cultivation of tea in organized plantations.

Pioneer Planters:

By the 1860's there was a veritable scramble to set up tea plantations in various provinces in India. Roads and steamer services were established, and a rapid expansion in cultivation was soon underway. The early pioneer planters lived difficult, solitary lives in the middle of dense jungles.

Recruitment of labour force was done on a Sirdari system from the hinterland in Bihar and Orissa, whereby gangs of workers went to Assam under a headman, worked their contracts and returned home. Ultimately, permanent employment became possible, and the labour force was provided with good housing, medical care, food rations and schooling.

The influx of European planters into the trade was influenced as much by the news of fabulous fortunes made by the tea merchants, as by the onset of famine in their native Scotland and Ireland, where immigration became the route to survival. Unfortunately, many of these early arrivals behaved in much the same way as their counterparts in America, who ran their operations with slave labour. However, strict rules for the recruitment of labour were laid down with establishment of Planters Associations and a civil administration.

With the coming of the joint stock companies, the tea trade from cultivation and transportation, to brokerages and retail outlets bacame flourishing businesses, with great fortunes being made by the merchants, and ample revenues collected by the governments of all the countries involved.

Names such as George Williams, Thomas Twining, Julius Drewe and Thomas Lipton were to become household names. Since the Second World War, teas have been marketed by multinational corporations in all the major consuming nations.

Universal Beverage:

Tea is the most universal of beverages, consumed by more than two-thirds of the world's population. It is the cheapest popular beverage, worldwide. In some countries, it has become an essential part of the nation's culture and civilization, and there are lively tales of folklore and history regarding its use. At present, global production is estimated to be 2.5 billion kg. annually, and more than 2 billion cups of tea are consumed daily around the world.

Green, orthodox, and CTC (crush, tear and curl) are the different varieties of tea available for consumers. China produces mainly green tea for domestic consumption and orthodox tea for export; Sri Lanka, mostly the orthodox variety, and the African countries produce only CTC teas.

India produces both the orthodox and the CTC variety. As the standards of living rise in developing countries, the demand for tea is also rising rapidly. At present, the supply is just about keeping pace with present consumption, but the indications are that around the year 2000 a shortage will develop. Hence, the global supply of tea has to be increased, mainly by increasing production.

In developed nations, consumers are shifting their preferences to tea as a specialty drink, particularly in Germany, where only the best quality is acceptable. Tea scented with essential oils such as lemon, rose, fragrant olive, cardamom, and bergamont, are commonly used in many parts of the world. Iced tea, with many flowers added, is becoming a popular drink with the health conscious and sports enthusiasts in the United States.

A healthy choice:

Tea is a health drink in a number of respects. It contributes towards daily vitamin B complex requirements. It has considerable germicidal effects due to catechize; is diuretic due to methyl xanchine; hypotensive due to the presence of gamma aminobutyric acid, and has some analgesic, antipyretic, and anti- clotting effects due to the presence of small amounts of salicylates, linalool and its oxide, gernaiol, hexanals and so on.

There are reports indicating the green tea may have specific inhibitory effects on platelet aggregation, and the conversion of angiotension I to angiotension II. Of particular interest are recent findings of the anticarcinogenic effects of epigallocatechin gallate, the antimutagemic effects of polyphenols in tea and the antioxidant effects of polyphenols extracts.

The physiological, biomedical, and health benefits of tea, specifically in connection with hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer, are now coming under scientific research and investigation in many countries.

These recent findings about the constituents in tea make it a marketing person's dream from the health point of view. Indeed, tea was the traditional treatment for fever and plague in the past 150 years or so, not only in various native medical care regimes in China, Tibet and India, but also in allopathic treatments in Scotland, Ireland, and England. Therefore, it may be claimed with a large measure of scientific support that as far as the maintenance of good health and vigor is concerned, there is nothing stronger in the world than the gentleness of tea.

Taste and Aroma:

What precisely makes a nice cup of tea? The flavour (taste and aroma) of tea is constituted of more than 500 chemicals, the relative proportion of which depends on the vagaries of the weather. Some of them are better produced under stress conditions and slow growth. Apart from tannins, catechins, theaflavins (TF), and thearubigins (TR), a whole cluster of substances issue out of oxidative diminutions of amino acids, oxidation of carotenoids, and unsaturated fatty acids, hydrolysis of terpene, glycosides and esterification of monoterpene alchohols (geraniol, linalool). Some of the trans-2-hexanol, which is primarily responsible for the leafy odor of tea

A quality tea should have brightness, body, briskness and flavour.

1. Brightness: Thearubigin (TR) is generally considered to be the main factory contributing to the brightness of tea. The colour should be a golden yellow which may shimmer slightly at the interface between cup and liquid.
    
2. Body: Good tea has body; it does not taste lean and thin on the tongue. This body in a cup of tea is delineated by "cream". A freshly made cup of tea has a creamy top layer (probably galactic lipids) for a period of time.
    
3. Briskness: The briskness of tea is attributed to its contents of caffeine and theanine.
    
4. Flavour: Flavour has two components: taste and aroma. Theanine and terpenoids are the most important taste components. Linalool oxide is perhaps the most important component contributing to aroma (Darjeeling tea).

Tea is a natural product. Tea plantations are perennial, and afford a natural way of soil conservation with absolutely no damage to the environment.


Author:

Mohanpal Singh Sidhu has worked 35 years as a tea planter since taking a B.Sc. in Geology & Soil Sciences in 1961. He was formerly Jt. Managing Director (Plantations) with the Assam Company Ltd. He is currently Managing Director of Milagro Harvest Pvt. Ltd.

Source: International Beverage & Grocery Buyer, September, 1995.