Tea: From Japan to EuropeMonks first introduced tea to Japan in the sixth century, but it wasn’t until the eighth century that cultivation began and tea became an important part of Japanese life. During the fifteenth century, tea masters in Japan developed rituals and symbolism around serving tea that resulted in the Japanese tea ceremony, which is still practiced today with such grace.
The first European port city to experience tea was Amsterdam, during the first few years of the seventeenth century. At first tea was treated as nothing more than a novelty-though a very expensive one. Tea didn’t make it to London for another half-century, but once the Brits found a taste for tea, they were never the same again. The British developed such a mania for tea that it quickly became part of the national culture.
The obsession for tea in England during the nineteenth century had devastating effects half a world away in China and India. As England expanded her imperialistic power, she became more greedy for tea and the profits it engendered. When British that trading opium for tea was more lucrative than buying tea with silver, they quickly developed a huge opium industry in India. The ruling British class in India forced local farmers to grow opium poppies in their field, rather than food crops. The result was hunger and deprivation in India and the Opium Wars and their tragic toll in China.Tea: From Japan to Europe
