A Brief History of Tea A Brief History of Tea
This book is an expansion of
the contents of my online tea pages, with a lot of photos. It can
be obtained from Seoul
Selection, the publishers. See a
very kind review of it by Lauren Deutsch in Kyoto
Journal.
This richly
illustrated book contains the Chinese text and translations
of 3 fundamental texts of Korean Tea culture: ChaBu,
Rhapsody to Tea by Hanjae Yi Mok; ChaSinJeon, A
Chronicle of the Spirit of Tea and DongChaSong, Hymn in
Praise of Korean Tea by the Venerable Cho-ui.
Did you know that all the tea drunk
in the world, no matter whether it is white, green, red,
brown, or black, and no matter where it comes from, is made of the
leaves of the same evergreen tree or bush?
Most people are surprised to hear this, and suddenly realize that although they may drink a lot of tea, they have never really stopped to ask where it came from or how it was made. In the pages that follow I want to take you on a journey through some of what I have learned about tea while living in Korea. To make things easier, I have broken my text into several different parts that you can browse through one after another or read selectively.
Tea-drinking becomes a ceremony
Tea in Korea and
Japan with translations of some poems by the Ven. Cho-Ui
Click here for a 2011 Powerpoint slideshow The Korean Way of Tea covering many aspects of Korean tea history etc. This focuses on the 'wild' tea that has grown around Korean temples for centuries and is usually thought to derive from tea planted by monks who brought tea seeds back with them from China. Recent genetic research has confirmed strikingly that the cultivars found as wild tea near Korean temples do indeed resemble closely those found in China, rather than Japan.
An article comparing
the tea classics by Yi Mok and the Ven. Cho-ui
The Korean way of
making (pan-roasted) green tea
(see also this much more
detailed description, also illustrated, from 2006)
Tea making at Gucheung-am in
Hwaeom-sa
The Korean way of
making oxidized 'paryo-cha' (yellow / red tea )
New in 2010
Panyaro - the Korean Way of Tea
Panyaro - some new pictures from May 2000
Tea in Taiwan and the Oriental Beauty Tea made in Peipu
(see a series of mostly tea-related
photos taken in Ruili at 1000 meters up Mount Ali in 2006)
Tea-making in Taiwan: Ali-shan 2009
Tea-making in Jiri-san, May
2006. Click on a thumbnail to start the slide
show. Tea-making
at Hwaom-sa, Jiri-san, May 2009
Powerpoint presentation
about tea in Korea etc
I wrote a series of short articles for the Korea Times in 1999 using and expanding the above materials. I have put all the texts into a single file. Quite a lot is drawn directly from the pages listed above, so be warned, there is a lot of overlap!
Feb. 9 Introduction to Tea
Feb. 24 History of Tea in Korea, China, Japan
March 10 Tea is Good for You
March 24 Early History of Tea
April 7 Tea Green, Oolong, and Red
April 21 Quince Tea and a Poet
May 5 The Grades of Tea and Cool Water
May 19 How Tea is made in the Mountains
June 3 Picking Tea in Chiri-san
June 17 Tea and Temple in Chiri-san
July 3 How to Prepare a cup of Green Tea
Blogs and magazines
Steve Owyoung has a fine
blog devoted to highly intelligent notes on various aspects
of tea.
Scott Shangguan has a tea-centered blog which is combined with his online tea store, Chinese Tea Culture, but down the left-hand column of that page you can find a lot of non-commercial information pages about tea.
Cha Dao is the ultimate
Tea Blog. In it there is a fascinating article
about
Lu T’ung and Lu Yü written by Steve Owyoung, THE expert
on tea history.
Mattcha's Blog from Canada is a wonderful resource, especially strong on Korean tea, and for a long time featured an online book club devoted to my Korean Tea Classics, for which I am most grateful.
Warren Peltier has a good site devoted to Chinese tea. The
China Experience introduces Chinese tea simply.
The Leaf tea magazine is a fine resource for tea lovers. See my article on Korean teas in Issue 7.
Rec.food.drink.tea
FAQ is part of Chris
Roberson's tea page which also contains a large array of
links and indicates that the FAQ page also
exists in French.
Pu-er.net is a remarkable site entirely devoted to one particular kind of Chinese tea that is increasingly familiar.
LiveJournal has a puerh tea
community
The Wan
Ling Tea House in Shanghai has a well-designed set of pages
with plenty of information on the main kinds of tea and the ways
in which it is drunk in modern China. Their list
of
links is also very useful.
CooksShopHere is also
a fine site, with a collection of photos taken during the owners'
trips to tea plantations in Japan and China. The store belongs to
Mary-Lou and Robert Heiss, whose book about Tea The
Story of Tea: A Cultural History is listed below.
Among Korean tea-makers / masters, Hong Kyeong-Hee (Hyo-am)
has his own home page
(only in Korean) with texts of the Classic of Tea, works
by Cho Ui etc and some pictures.
Other tea sites
In Taipei there is what claims to be "the
world's largest tea museum."
If looking to buy tea online in the US, or simply interested in
tea, the home pages of Upton
Tea Imports are surely a good starting point.
Franchia (12 Park Avenue) is an
extension of the Hangawi vegetarian restaurant in New York. It
specializes in Korean tea and sells online.
The largest stock of teas available for purchase in Europe is
probably that found at the French firm of Mariage freres with
almost 500 different teas listed.
In London, East teas and Postcard teas (they are closely connected) sell and love Korean teas, the first store is either online or physical on Fridays and Saturdays at Borough Market (London Bridge), the second is a shop off New Bond Street. They sell other teas and implements too, of course!
The Hankook Tea Company
(based in Kwangju) has a complete set of English-language pages
(click on 'English' at the top of the opening page) and has
recently opened its own tea store in Los Angeles: Chasaengwon,3839
Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Tel (213)
380-3538.
Here are links to a few other sites (alas, all only in
Korean) of good tea producers in Korea:
The Ssangkye Tea Foundation
groups small ('artisanal') producers in the region around Ssangkye
Temple in Hwagye, one of the best tea-producing parts of
Chiri-san.
The Ilsong Company produces
tea in the same region of Chiri-san.
The largest company making tea in Korea is O'Sulloc Tea, (English pages new in 2010)
which produces tea in a considerable variety of qualities, some
hand-made and some more industrial. Their main plantations are in
Jeju Island. The same company also owns the Amore
Museum (was the Amore-Pacific Museum) in Yongin, south of
Seoul, which owns many of the greatest treasures
related
to
Korean tea. including the portrait of the Ven. Cho-ui and
early copies of his writings about tea.
Prof. Jeong Min's
home page for Joseon texts about tea etc
Some books about tea
The main problem with books about tea (except for mine and the first one listed below) is that they almost always completely ignore Korea.Manchester, Carole. Tea in the East. New York: Hearst Books. 1996. (Some beautiful pictures, but she never mentions Korea, not even once!)
Engelbert Kaempfer: Exotic Pleasures. Translated...Robert W. Carrubba.Southern Illinois University Press. 1996.
Park Hee-joon. Ch'a han chan. Seoul: Shinorim. 1994. (In Korean)
Lee Ki-yun. Ta-do. Seoul: Taewon-sa. 1989 (In Korean)
The oldest book in English about Chinese tea has the longest
possible title: An account of the cultivation and manufacture
of tea in China : derived from personal observation during an
official residence in that country from 1804 to 1826 : and
illustrated by the best authorities, Chinese as well as European
: with remarks on the experiments now making for the
introduction of the culture of the tea tree in other parts of
the world (1848). It can be downloaded as a PDF file from
the Internet
Archive or it can be read through Google
Books.