TO
CENTURY MINUS-TWELVE
Chinese historical research has found evidence of
the use of tea much earlier than was once thought.
As far back as the twelfth century B.C., King Wen,
founder of the Zhou dynasty, is said to have received
tea as tribute from the tribal heads in and around
present-day Sichuan. This is mentioned in a book written
about these areas shortly after A.D. 347, Treatise
on the Kingdom of Huayang by Changju. Until the third
century B.C. the fresh leaves were boiled with water.
Drying and processing of the leaves began around that
time as tea became a daily beverage.
The celebrated third century surgeon Hua Tuo, originator
of anesthe-sia, is reported as saying that tea drinking
increased concentration and alertness. Liu Kun, a
top general in the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.) serving
as governor in Yanzhou (Shandong), wrote his nephew
that he was feeling- old and depressed, and to send
some "real tea." A 59 B.C. book by Wang
Bao tells how to buy and brew tea in Wuyang, now Pengshan,
in central Sichuan province. China's oldest medical
book, Shen Nongs Canon of Medicinal Herbs (a collection
of herbal remedies first compiled around A.D. 500)
includes mentions of tea.
By A.D. 3 50, the beverage was well enough known
to be included man addition in that year to the Erya
encyclopedia-dictionary originally published six hundred
years earlier. It is described as a drink made by
boiling the leaves of the tea plant.
Early references used a character pronounced tu.
which also refers to the sow-thistle. To distinguish
the two, a Han dynasty emperor ruled that this character
be pronounced cha when referring to tea. In the eighth
century one bar disappeared from the middle vertical
stroke, giving cha a character all its own.
During the fifth century, tea drinking spread rapidly
in the south and more slowly in the north .'By then
tea was well established as a beverage. A Jin dynasty
poet wrote, "Fragrant tea superimposes the six
passions; the taste for it spreads over the nine districts
(meaning the whole country)." Tea was sent to
the emperors of the Eastern Jin dynasty(317-420).
It must have already been taken up by some of the
nomadic tribes, for Chinese records note its use in
barter trade with Turkic peoples in A.D. 476.
In the far reaches, tea pressed into cakes served
as a medium of exchange almost from the beginning
of the tea trade. Tea cakes contin-ued in this role
even after paper money was introduced in the eleventh
century. Tea merchants were responsible for the first
bank drafts in theTann- dynasty. They found it difficult
and dangerous to carry the gold payment for their
sales back to the south from the capital Chang'an
(today's Xi'an). So provincial representatives in
the capital, who had to turn in certain sums to the
crown each year, used the gold from tea sales for
this purpose and wrote drafts entitling the merchants
to collect their proceeds on their return to the provinces.
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