January 27, 2024 • 52 mins
In this classic series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the history, mythology, culture and nature of tea. So start a kettle and prepare to listen with your favorite cup… (originally published 02/07/2023)
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We're
heading into the vault for an older episode of Stuff
to Blow Your Mind. This is part two of our
series on Tea. Part one ran last Saturday. This was
originally published February seventh, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Enjoy the Immortal Dan Chew abandoned eating jade elixirs, picking
tea instead. He drank and grew feathered wings. The world
is unaware of the mansion of imminent and hidden immortals.
People do not know of the palace of transmuting bone
into clouds. The lad of Cloudy Mountain blended it in
(00:47):
a gold cauldron. How hollow the fame of the Man
of Chew and his book of Tea. Late on a
frosty night, breaking cakes off fragrant tea brewed to overflowing
the pale yellow frog, I sip and am reborn. Bestowed
by the gentleman. This tea dispels my suffering, cleansing my
(01:07):
mind from worry and fear. Come morning, the emotions of
the fragrant brazier remain intoxicated. Still we walk across the
clouds reflected in Tiger Stream in high song I send
the gentleman off.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. That is from
a song of Drinking Tea on the departure of Zing
Wrong by jou Ran. This particular bit of Chinese poetry
I came across when I was reading a blog post
(01:56):
four ancient Chinese poems on tea in one Symphony. This
was on the website Tranquility Tuesdays, and I found this
one interesting because the author of this piece pointed out
that the piece that we opened the first episode off
with the seven bowls of Tea is just very well cited.
You'll find it referenced in just about any history of tea.
(02:18):
It frequently shows up on tea blogs and so forth.
The author here noted that, you know, given that it is,
you know, over sighted, that one should also include other
poems of note, and this is one such poem well so.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
In the original poem, I'd say the major theme was
sort of the mounting levels of experience that come with
each successive cup of tea up until you hit the
danger zone, crossing the threshold from the sixth to the
dreaded seventh cup. In this case, what would you say
The main themes are I see here kind of a
(02:51):
community or a filial aspect to the tea talking about
you know, the lab bruise it, and then these two
drink it together. Sure exactly who these two people are
supposed to be?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, there's definitely more of an earth bound since here
I'm getting you know. It is, of course beautifully written
and has that kind of ethereal quality to it as well.
But the tea is not just taking you and transforming
you into an immortal and sending you to a mythical lands.
It's making you feel reborn, but also all of the
(03:24):
world as well, or at least that's my interpretation of it.
So anyway, Yeah, this is part two of our look
at Tea. We're already hearing from some folks regarding our
first episode, and in the second episode we're going to
continue the journey. So go back and listen to part
one if you haven't heard it yet, because in that
last episode we discussed the botanical facts concerning tea, as
(03:47):
well as some myths about its origin. But now that
we've established what tea is and where it's spring from,
and referenced some of the mythological ideas about tea and
read a couple of poems, this most recent was Tanged Honesty,
by the way, at this point, I think it's time
to discuss the history of tea in a little more detail,
especially as it concerns the ways that it can be
(04:09):
prepared and was prepared across time. So I think it
makes sense, first of all, to just look at some
of the steps that are frequently employed in preparing tea
after it's been harvest what happens between it growing on
the plant that we discussed in part one and somehow
(04:32):
making it into a cup or bowl of tea the beverage.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Right, and so one thing we talked about in the
previous episode is how different types of tea that you get,
say black tea versus green tea versus white or oolong,
they will usually be from the same plant or the
same of a couple of variants of this plant, Camellia senensus.
There's one tea plant, and so the differences you get
in the different teas are based on how it is
(04:59):
processed and prepared.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Right, right. So one of the books I've been looking
at here is Laura C. Martin's A History of Tea,
and I think the author does a fabulous job laying
out the history and also the different steps involved in
creating these beverages of tea. She points out that no
matter what sort of tea preparation you're talking about, certain
(05:22):
steps are common to many of them. Not all varieties
of tea involve all the steps, but it's worth going
over them all and then we can say, well, this
one doesn't involve this step, and this one does involve
this step.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay. So it starts, of course, with the gathering of
the leaves. Usually on tea farms, they will be collected
as flushes, these sort of top buds of a couple
leaves and a shoot coming off the top of the plant.
Those will be harvested and the rest of the plant
will be left there to produce new flushes in the future.
And so you gather a bunch of these flushes of leaves,
and then what do you do with them?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, you could, I guess, just stick them in your mouth.
But here's the thing. If you do that in certainly
we have some of these tails of some of these
mythical origins of tea saying that's what happened, people stuck
it in their mouth, And you know that might well
be connected to some of the original ways that human
beings explore the natures of the tea plant leaves and
even gain some of the effects. But if you just
(06:16):
stick them in your mouth and start chewing, it's going
to be really bitter. So this is at this point
we have the first step of withering. So the fresh
green leaves and buds are dried out, either in a
heated room of some sort or they're left in the sun,
and this causes the starch in the leaves to begin
transforming into sugar and the moisture content drops by fifty
(06:38):
to eighty percent, and this allows the next possible step
to take place, which is the rolling of the tea
leaves and then be able to roll it without breaking
the leaves. This is something you might have to think
back to your childhood days of like playing with leaves
and sticks. But sometimes if a leaf is fresh and
you go to like roll it up, it's going to
(06:58):
it's going to break, all right. The rolling part here
is often done via machines today but was historically done
by hand, and the rolling without breaking here twists and
crushes the leaves in a way that releases SAP, exposes
it to oxygen, and stimulates fermentation. Additional rolling and or
(07:19):
sifting may take place here as well, so that's step two. Now.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
One reason you might be rolling or sort of bruising
these leaves in some way essentially handling them roughly, is
in order to stimulate oxidation. Oxidation in general refers to
a broad class of chemical reactions that take place when
molecules are exposed to oxygen or another oxidizing agent, and
(07:45):
a core feature of an oxidation reaction is that the
molecules that are getting oxidized are losing electrons, but that
doesn't tell as much. It's usually it's some type of
chemical reaction. Now, it's interesting that the deliberate oxidation of
tea leaves is an important stage in their processing, especially
for producing darker teas, less so for greener teas, because
(08:08):
most often oxidation in foods is not something you want.
It's an undesirable outcome associated with spoilage and ransidity. So
some examples, and I guess these would be the closest analogies.
There are oxidation reactions of various types, like there's oxidation
of fats and so forth in oils. But for an
(08:29):
analogy in plants, think about when you cut an apple.
So you cut an apple in half and you leave
it out on the counter. What happens, Oh, it turns brown, right,
And this browning is not generally considered good. It's not
something that makes the apple harmful to eat, but most
of the time people don't find it very appetizing. It
changes the appearance and sometimes the flavor and texture as well,
(08:52):
and you know, tastes can vary, but most people would
not say that is a type of browning that they
seek out on purpose. And this is actually true of
many foods, especially fruits. So you can think of the
way avocados brown once they're cut or smashed and left
out on the counter, or potatoes or any number of
other plant based foods. The chemical reaction taking place here
(09:12):
is a form of oxidation called enzymatic browning and insomatic
browning is due to an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase. Fruits
and vegetables have compounds in them called phenolic compounds, and
when these compounds get exposed to both oxygen and to
that enzyme to polyphenol oxidase at the same time. They
(09:35):
react with the oxygen and go through a multi step
transformation process that ends with them turning into melanin. Melanin
is a natural brown pigment that you can find in
all forms of life. It's in plants, it's in fungi,
it's in animals including us. It's the brown pigment in
human hair and skin and inner irises. And so that
(09:57):
process naturally takes place once you cut an apple or
a banana or any of these foods. But how come
this chemical reaction turning phenolic compounds into melanin doesn't happen
once the when the apple is just like sitting there
on the counter uncut. How come it only happens once
you cut it. This is because in order for the
reaction to happen, we need three different substances to come
(10:19):
into contact with one another. So you need the phenolic
compounds the base molecules were transforming. You need the enzyme,
which in this case is polyphenol oxidase, and you need
the free oxygen in the air. And when all three
elements are present, there together, then you get this browning process.
So in plant tissue, the enzyme, the polyphenol oxidase, and
(10:42):
the phenolic compounds are usually kept separate from one another.
But damage to the plant, such as cutting it open
or bashing it and bruising it, will rupture cells and
cause these chemicals to blend together and unite, And then
you expose them to air and the oxidation happens. Now,
coming back to what I said earlier, ensomatic browning is
(11:04):
considered undesirable in lots of foods like you know you
do you, but most people would rather eat their apple slices, bananas, avocados,
and so forth before they sit out on the counter
for a few hours and turn brown. The browned versions
of these plants kind of look and taste degraded, not
exactly fresh. But in other plants, the browning process has
(11:26):
a desirable outcome. It is used on purpose to achieve
desirable improvements in appearance, texture, and flavor. One example would
be in certain dried fruits like raisins go through enzomatic
browning it deliberately in order to create new and interesting
flavors that people like. And another example might be in
seeds or leaves used to prove strongly flavored caffeinated beverages.
(11:51):
Oxidative browning is specifically sought out as part of the
preparation process for tea leaves. So you can think about
the process of say, rolling tea leaves around, like smashing
them or rolling them in a tumbler of some kind
in order to kind of like bruise and just rough
up the leaves to these get these different compounds coming together,
(12:15):
and expose them to oxygen to trigger the sprowning process. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I like to come back to the apple example, the
apple that's spilt, it falls out of the bowl and
falls off the counter and rolls across the floor. You know,
that's the one that gets all bruised up, and those
bruises are brown. That's the oxidation taking place.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, exactly. And again you know you don't usually want
that in an apple, but it turns out you do
it to a tea leaf, and oh it's producing all
these nice, interesting new aromas and flavors. It's making the
tea taste. I think a lot of tea producers would
say it makes it. It sort of takes away some
of the fresh, grassy flavor of green tea and introduces
these complex sweet flavors that taste more like a floral
(12:55):
aromas or like fruits.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, it creates this whole additional dimension of flavor. Now,
this this stage of oxidation here, Martin stresses that it
is it's super important for determining the flavor destination of
the tea. It typically takes about three hours if it
is done. The leaves are left on trays and a cool,
damp place often and the oxidation causes them to turn
(13:19):
from green to kind of a copper color. They also
heat up during this phase, and you also and you
have to depending on exactly what you're doing with the
tea leaves, you may have to halt it as well,
because you don't want the oxidation to go too far,
because then you'll end up with what's described as kind
of a burnt taste. It's also really important to note
here that not all teas go through this phase, and
(13:42):
this should seem pretty obvious that black tea does go
through the oxidation phase and is therefore fully oxidized. Yeah,
that is why it is this black or red color.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah. And to and to pick up on and clarify
something you said a minute ago, heating, I think is
usually specifically used to stop the oxidation process. So if
you want a green tea that has a nice fresh,
sort of grassy vegetable flavor and keeps its green color,
those are usually going to be heated earlier to stop
the oxidation from progressing any further, whereas a black tea
(14:15):
you would let go through way more oxidation before heating
it in a little oven.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Now, just this is a cultivation note, but I ended
up throwing it into my notes here, so I'm going
to read it before I forget about it. Originally, tea
trees were, of course wild, and they would grow in
the wild, and they grew quite tall. The higher leaves
were obtained by simply cutting down the tree. This wouldn't
work long term, of course, and so with cultivation comes
(14:41):
the pruning and the non lethal harvesting of the leaves.
So I just found that interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Okay, So that's why you get this process of like
taking the flushes off of the top instead of fully
culing the plant.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, but back to the process. Okay, so we've had
we've had the first step here of withering, then rolling,
then oxidation, and then we get into the step of drying.
This is a quick drying to stop the oxidation at
desired levels, So we've kind of alluded to this already
as well as to remove enough moisture to prevent mold
(15:12):
from forming. But you also can't dry it out too
much or the tea could again taste burnt or on
the other end of the spectrum, it could lose its flavor.
All right, And then with the fourth step done, we're
under the fifth and this is grating and sorting. Basically,
what you're left with. You got to figure out what
you've got, and generally what you have is you have
whole leaves, you have broken leaves, you have the dinnings,
(15:34):
and you have dust. Whole is the best, that's the
highest quality, while and then broken leaves and then fannings
and dust that tends to go into cheaper things like
you know, tea bags and so forth. Again, not all
teas go through all of these phases. Black tea goes
through all five. Oolong tea is partially oxidized. Green teas
(15:55):
are dried after rolling to prevent oxidation at all. White
tea doesn't go through withering, fermentation or rolling. Now, this
doesn't cover anywhere near all the teas out there. In
the different types of teas, there are plenty of sub
varieties of each, and then there are blends as well,
Like one common example is English Breakfast Tea, which is
a blend of black teas.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Now there's a whole other class of complex chemical reactions
that teas undergo, separate from the baseline oxidation process we've
been talking about, which is fermentation, a whole other thing
where you are deliberately introducing microbial growth to further create
complex flavors and aromas.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
That's right, And at this point I want to mention
the poorer teas. These are a special case. These are
again one of my favorite tea varieties, and actually our
producer jj I was chatting with him he also really
likes these, and I imagine we have a number of
listeners who are fond of these as well.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
But these are fermented teas, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's so these teas are generally made from larger, older
leaves that I believe Martin described as almost being kind
of like hairy, you know, they're they're they're they're really
big old leaves. And also there's an enough moisture is
allowed to remain in them, so that they can continue
to ferment for years. Uh. This is this is the
(17:22):
only variety of tea that improves with age. The teas
stored away in bricks or cakes. Also, they're often various wrappings,
like sometimes it's like a like a bamboo type situation
or some sort of fabric wrapping and and ends up
with just a wide beret of flavors that are at
least in my experience, unlike any other teas I've tried,
(17:45):
h they often have the ones I've I keep coming
back to have kind of a often kind of like
a barnyard flavor, kind of straw or hay to them.
One of them that I really love is just especially dark.
It's like it's like a bowl or a cup of midnight.
And like I say, they're often you often you'll find
these in kind of like a loose leaf situation, but
(18:05):
you also find them in little pucks, little bricks, big
cakes that you have to chip away with a special
little ornate knife. I mean you could use a normal
butter knife or your car keys, I guess, but you know,
get into it. This is tea we're talking about. But
these have a fascinating history not only as just being
t bricks, but being used as money as well, with
(18:29):
the prime example being taking place in Tibet. As Wolfgang
Birch points out in the use of tea bricks as
currency among the Tibetans in the Tibet Journal, the Chinese
introduced tea to Tibet sometime prior to seven eighty c.
And while it was first used as more of a
pure bartering commodity, you know, I'll trade you a brick
(18:51):
of tea for this, that or the other, it eventually
took on a form that we might reasonably refer to
as currency, a regimented system of tea e bricks based
on the tea's quality and pureeness, and eventually imprinted with
trademarks and seals. So you might think of it almost like,
you know, you think of like a bar of gold
that has been imprinted with governmental information, Like here's the
(19:15):
seal of the of the governing body saying this is
an approved grade of gold, the amount of gold, et cetera.
It's the exact same thing with these t bricks. The
governing authority has said this is such and such tea
of such and such quality, and it is a certain
amount of it. It's usable as currency in this scenario.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
That's interesting. It makes me think, I don't know this,
but I'm wondering. So in this case, would this have
been a fermented type of tea since it's in yet form.
That makes me think about how, you know, if you're
going to try to use a commonly consumed, say food
or drink item as a currency, it would be difficult
to use one that quickly degrades in quality, for like
(19:57):
its use value. So if it's something we're freshness really matters,
you would not want the use value of your currency
to degrade fast over the course of a few months.
But if it's like a fermented tea, you mentioned that
these get better with age rather than declining, so you
can at least hope your currency there keeps its value.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, yeah, it would keep its value. Of anything, it
would increase in value, though I don't remember reading anything
about how that would be decided upon, but I guess
it would be subject to like the going rate for
te's of a particular harvest and maturity level, you know,
like you all the information would be there on the seal.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
This is a side note. I wonder how economies are
different when they have a currency that does have in
some cases a use value of its own, like you know,
if you're not going to use it for trade, you
would use it for something else, like you would literally
eat it or drink it, versus economies that just have
a currency that is purely useless on its own, it's
(21:00):
only for facilitating trade, like US dollars.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, I mean for gold, I guess is not quite
an example of that, because even historically gold was still
desired as something that could be used for ornamentation, whereas
today it also has technology electronics uses as well.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
The other really good example of this is the use
of chocolate in some Mesoamerican cultures, where that the chocolate
was such a highly regarded commodity and one that I
guess had kind of generalized sizes and measurements that it
could be used as currency as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Interesting question. Maybe we'll come back to that one day.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, So at this point that we might get more
into the timeline of tea with the primary interest in
sort of the evolution of the way that it is
prepared and ultimately consumed. As we explored in the last episode,
the origin of tea drinking is more mythology than historical fact.
It's one of the those things where if you try
and answer the question of, like, well, who invented tea?
(22:04):
Who came up with this? It's basically lost to prehistory.
These are things where we have some interesting myths that
kind of sum up some of the general ideas and
ultimately some of the general realities of how human beings
experimented with and chronicled the nature of their botanical world.
(22:25):
But in general we can't answer it. There's no one person.
Though again, some of these accounts do have a sort
of an interesting shred of truth to them, like one
of the ones that, in addition to the ones we
discussed in the last episode, there's one that Michael d.
Co brings up in seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient
World in a chapter about I Believe Chocolate and Tea.
(22:46):
There's another myth where a past Chinese emperor was boiling
some water and some wild leaves just kind of blew
into his water, boiling in the pot, thus creating tea.
That of course sounds like pure myth and is not
like a real story, but it reminds me of our
episode on the invention of the cauldron, and about how
like a cauldron or any kind of container even like
(23:08):
a skin of boiling water, Like what an essential laboratory
that is for humans in ancient times? Figuring out what
things are and what they can be used for. Now,
the question that may come up for some of you
might think, well, there's a great deal of Chinese literature
out there going back quiet a way. Can't we just
see when people first started writing about tea? And I
(23:30):
think this is a reasonable question to ask. But as
Martin explains in the book, it's not quite that simple.
And part of the problem is that the Chinese character
associated with t was previously used again in literature, in
writing to refer to other shrubs and plants. For example,
there are mentions of tea dating back to the fifth
(23:53):
century BCE, but it's thought that the character in question
here is just referring to south thistle, a plant sometimes
used in Chinese cuisine and native to Europe and Western Asia.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Oh okay, so yeah, frustrating trying to understand the history.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah yeah, So we have to think about the fact
that anytime something like this comes along, like it's not
just oh, we have this new thing, let's get a
new word for it, but that's in any language. That's
not necessarily how it works. I'm reminded of all the
different apples that Europeans began to discover in the world
and report back, Yeah, palm de tear. So again, we
(24:32):
can't pinpoint a time when tea drinking began in China,
but we can likely say it was certainly a thing
by the Han dynasty two o six PC through twenty
twenty CE. Granted that's a large period of time, but
by that period people were drinking tea. It most likely
began in Sichuan Province in southwestern China and spread gradually
(24:55):
to the rest of China, and would have reached northern
China by the Tang dynasty that period six eighteen through
nine o seven by the third century, though, according to Martin,
we do have mentions in the literature of tea that
we can more firmly connect to actual tea drinking, which
points out that Hatwo, a noted physician who may have
also developed one of the earliest forms of anesthesia, also
(25:18):
wrote about tea quote, to drink tea constantly makes one
think better.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
That checks out, well, it depends on what you mean
by constantly. Yeah, I'm not sure about the particulars of
the translation. There By the way, the anesthesia that he
supposedly invented, I think they was reading that the name
literally transplates to cannabis boiling powder, but we still don't
know exactly what this supposed anesthesia contained. Also, a general
(25:47):
from the third century, lou Kuhn, wrote that he felt old,
depressed and needed some real tea when just the impression
he that he's out doing the military thing and he
just realizes, Man, I'm just I'm old, I'm sad, and
I would just kill for an actual cup of tea
instead of I guess boiling various other things that we're
finding in in nature around us M. So you could
(26:12):
you could have fake teas. There's like, if you can't
get real tea from Camellia sinensis, you might just try
boiling other plant matter.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, I mean, the history of tea is kind of
full of these examples, and not only the history of tea,
but I guess the history of of like pharmacology, and
that's no pharmacology in general. I think we've touched a
little bit on this before talking about psychedelics, where you'll
have some historians think you'll have one particular custom of
(26:40):
using a particular herb or plant that is growing in
the natural environment. But what happens when people move? What
happens when there's a migration. Yes, in many cases you
can bring your plants with you. Sometimes those plants don't
survive though, Sometimes they can't be brought anyway, or you
just that the people that bring them are not able
to keep those plants going in these new places they
(27:02):
move to. And in those cases you might try to
find some sort of reasonable facsimile, like what's something else
that does something that changes me a little bit when
I boil it in water and drink it. So we
may come back to some of that in a pit.
And then Martin also points that by let's say, around
three point fifty CE, there's a more detailed description of
(27:23):
the tea plant that we seem pretty sure is an
actual description of tea. And this is provided by go
Poo again around three fifty C.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Now, I guess one thing I wonder is it's one
thing to talk about. Okay, we're taking leaves of this
specific plant and boiling them to make tea, But it's
another thing to think about, like all of the complex
preparation process steps and the different varieties of tea pretty today.
Do you have any idea when that sort of thing
(28:02):
started to come online, or at least when we have
the earliest evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, this is this is interesting because one thing that
Martin points out is that early on tea was probably
not good. It would have been nothing like what we're
having today. It would have been we could almost think
of it more as kind of this herbal soup, and
you'd have various things added to it in an attempt
to improve the flavor profile. And you might be thinking, oh,
(28:28):
like delightful flowers and stuff. No, things like onions might
be added. It is just a way to improve the flavor.
And I believe Martin, I believe mentioned that this probably
also didn't work. It was just so strong a flavor
you couldn't really improve on it all that much. But
you drank it because you know it was there were
already some healthful associations with it, and you know, maybe
(28:51):
it wasn't making it was sick because it was boiled,
et cetera. But during the time of the Northern Way
Dynasty three eighty six through five thirty five, apparently the
tea processing had improved, at least to what we might
think of as a basic level. There are mentions of
cakes made of tea leaves that have been roasted. It
was probably still a lot cruder compared to things that
(29:14):
were gonna come, or certainly cruder than things that you
would think of today as desirable teas. But the journey
toward more complex flavors was underway, and I'm assuming you
were maybe not having to put onions in your tea
anymore now. During the fifth century CE, there's also examples
(29:35):
of tea tributes being made to the imperial court and
to the emperor himself, and also the emperor was said
to have his own tea reserves as well, like these
were places where just the emperor's tea was grown. So
already it was presumably flavors are improving, and also the
ruling class, the elites of society are really getting attached
(29:57):
to the idea of tea. But then the Tang dynasty
six eighteen through nine oh seven, this is the period
in which we see Chinese tea in the form of
baked bricks of green tea, which are ideal for travel,
spreading to new parts of the Empire and beyond. Martin
also writes that this widespread technique also greatly improved the flavor.
(30:18):
The popularity of tea spread so much during this time
that it was no longer just a drink of the
elite of the emperor and his court. It was a
drink for everybody, even peasants by this point were we're
getting in on tea culture. That doesn't mean everybody would
have access to the same tea. Of course, with the
type of tea you drank would be intrinsically linked to
(30:41):
your place in society, as would the various paraphernalia that
were used in tea preparation and tea consumption, but it
was essentially something that could be found throughout society. Also,
this would again have been exclusively green tea, as red
black tea would not be developed for centuries to come.
And this is the time of an individual by the
(31:03):
name of lou U. This would have been in the
eighth century. He was known as the Immortal of T
the Sage of T, and he was author of the
Classic of.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
T The Classic of T. I see a similarity in
the English naming convention of some of these great old
Chinese texts similar to like the Classic of Mountains and
Seas exactly, Yes, I forget exactly what that is translated from, though,
Like what are all the range of meanings in the original?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, but certainly this is a common translation of
some of these important books. I would think you could.
You might roughly think of it the same way that
important books might in the Western traditions might be preferred
to as like the book of such and such or
a chronicle of such and such.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Now, this is an interesting figure Louu though, because there
are a number of legends about him as well. You know,
he's definitely a historic individual and author. It seems that
folks agree on that. But there are all these additional stories,
such as that he was abandoned and subsequently adopted by
Buddhist monks. Also, there's this other story that he and
(32:12):
I think these all kind of work together, or at
least were eventually stitched together into one narrative that he
was then trained. He then trained to be a clown
in the opera, and this was his lifelong ambition, but
then he ended up becoming a scholar instead. He started
spending a lot of time in tea houses, which was
a popular hangout at the time. And this reminds me
(32:33):
a bit of accounts of tea and coffee houses in
later European history as a kind of like cultural incubator.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, a place where like the poet resides.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah. Yeah. And so he has this supposed trajectory that's
pretty interesting, Like he starts off as as an abandoned child,
becomes a monk, then becomes a clown, then becomes a scholar,
and then essentially becomes the immortal of tea.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
It implies tea being kind of like the highest level achievable.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, it does. And I think that matches up with
the way that he was received and regarded. But it
goes beyond like you might think, Okay, he wrote this
scholarly work about tea, and I bet the scholarly class
really loved it. But as Martin points out, this work
had a huge impact on tea and society, as it
gave agriculturists and farmers the first real written account of
(33:25):
how to cultivate and process tea. Everything before the Classic
of Tea was just orally transmitted or was unknown to
individuals who might want to partake of it and cultivate
their own tea. His work made tea cultivation accessible, and
it included everything that was known at the time about tea,
(33:46):
where you could grow it, how to grow it, how
to harvest it and prepare it, the culture of drinking it,
the twenty four implements required to prepare tea in the home,
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Whoa, that's a lot of implements, Yeah, and a lot
of just sort of advice on what is proper.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Like. For instance, I was reading in Martin that he
was a big fan of using blue glazed cups to
enhance the green color of the tea, while he thought
that white cups or bowls would give it a distasteful
pink color.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
This is interesting in part because it reminds me of
the passages in Plenty of the Elder where he's like, Hey,
if you're gonna boil like some sweet sapa to drink,
you better do it in a lead pot instead of
a copper one, because the copper makes it bitter, the
lead makes it sweet. I assume he's not talking about
actual changes in flavor here, but truly just appearance. But
(34:42):
this is also quite observant because I think, as like
chefs and people who work in restaurants will tell you
the appearance and color of your plates really does affect
how people perceive the food.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And then of course there's so much
ritual on top of all of this, you know. Martin
stresses that while some of this might seem just you know,
over the top and perhaps too fancy, we have to
remind ourselves that this is a world where individuals like
lou U are striving for universal perfection. So that's and
(35:17):
we have to think about it too in light of Confucianism, Taoism,
and Buddhism as well, which are all important energies in
the world surrounding this growing tea culture. Now, the popularity
of the Classic of Teas not only spread the word
of tea, it also further enhanced its popularity and pushed
both greater tea trade and greater advancements in how it
(35:40):
was cultivated and prepared. Tea also spread throughout China during
this time because it had become just so embraced by
Buddhist practice and culture. But it's also meant that when
Buddhism fell out of favor during the decline of the
Tang dynasty, tea culture did as well. And this would
this was a trend that would recur when foreign invaders
(36:01):
would control parts of China, Tea culture would suffer in
that area.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Interesting, does that mean it was replaced by something or
I wonder what caused that correlation.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
It's based on what I was reading, and there may
be more nuanced to this, and more and more to this,
but it would just be a situation where it was
linked with the with the ruling party. You know, it's
kind of like a top down cultural practice and without
without Tea culture emanating from sort of a you know,
(36:36):
in radiating waves from the ruling body, it kind of
falls out of favor and you have people maybe following,
and you're going to have cultural trans transmission taking place
there too. Of course, because you also see in the
in the histories where you know, some some groups, say
the Mongols becomes the ruling body in a part of China,
they also become more Chinese as they rule, So you know,
(37:00):
the cultural transmission goes both ways. But it seems like
you would have these situations where a foreign power would
take control for a while and yet just Tea popularity
would wane, but then when inevitably Chinese rule was restored
to these areas you would see the reverse and one
of the examples of this would be nine sixty. See
(37:24):
the rule of the Song dynasty brought tea back to
the forefront. Its trade during this period became so important
that the Imperial court found that they could just restrict
or manipulate the flow of tea to outlying regions if
deemed necessary. So it would be a way to control
and manipulate other groups, such as determining how much tea
(37:46):
goes to, say, to bat or to the Mongols, or
to the Turks and others. Almost kind of like a
spice trade of Dune sort of scenario, you know. And
certainly that's the sort of thing that Frank Herbert was
thinking of when he was right. Maybe not tea specifically,
but obviously this control of a desired or vital resource
(38:07):
by one particular body.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
It's also during this time period, Martin rights, that we
enter the second school or phase of tea. So this
first phase had been the brick era. Again, we're talking
about those bricks of tea, you know, how it's dried
and then often stored, et cetera. But then we're entering
at this point the whipped school and It's called the
(38:30):
whipped school due to the creation and popularity of dried
and powdered green tea that was then whipped in boiling
water till it's foamy. This is what we typically call
macha tea today, and it was a huge hit during
this time period. Of course, has remained whip us.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Oh that's interesting, Okay, I guess I do associate macha
tea with looking kind of foamy, but I didn't realize
why that was. So it's like typically more of a
powder form that is whipped into the water vigorously.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah. Yeah, like generally you'll have and we'll probably come
back around them to macha here in a bit and
talk about it in especially in relation to Japanese tea culture.
But yeah, even if you get it today, you're probably
gonna get some sort of one variety or another of macha,
perhaps like a ceremonial grade tea. You're gonna put that
in your in your bowl or cup, and once you
(39:21):
have the hot water, you're gonna you're gonna want to
whip it up. There's gonna be a special implement to
do that, and this of course can also be quite exceptional.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Okay, So we go from brick to the whipped powder,
and then does it does it change after that, because
that still doesn't resemble the most of the tea preparation
I can think of today, which is based on steeping.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Right right, Well, that is gonna eventually be the third school,
the school of steeping, as in like loose leaf tea especially,
and we are still in this school today, Martin Wright.
So of course all three of these are still used.
I don't know if there's gonna be a fourth phase
of tea.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I don't know the laser school of tea.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
All right, there's more to the history of tea, and
we'll keep going with the history of tea in a
future episode here, but I thought it might be fun
at this point to discuss tea and health.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Now.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I mentioned earlier how Martin pointed out that by the
fourth century CE, T consumption was probably part of daily
life for many in China, but it wasn't good. You
were having to mask it with things like you know,
sometimes things like citrus or ginger, which doesn't sound that bad,
but other times you're putting salt and onions in it,
all to try and make it more palpable. But you
were consuming it because it had perceived health benefits. You
(40:43):
also might just eat your tea leaves straight like a
vegetable in this time. Still, though again it would have
been bitter. It would not have been a pleasant experience.
You Also, I was surprised by this. You also might
have sniffed it like snuff, So that would be a
sort of a you know, an approach to powdered tea
that I didn't think about. Also, not what I'm saying
anyone needs to try, but it was one method that
(41:07):
was used, as was sometimes using it externally, like you know,
applying it just to the skin, or perhaps to some
sort of skin irritation like a poultice. Yeah, so it
was widely used during this time. Again not because it
was necessarily pleasant to have. But first of all, it
was associated with wakefulness and digestion, which I think these
(41:28):
are both agreed upon effects of caffeine. If you've had caffeine,
or explored caffeine, or even been around people that use caffeine,
you probably know that this is the case. Like caffeine
can can wake you up, it can make you more alert,
it can also speed up digestion. And yeah, and that's
why if you go to a coffee house or a
tea house these days, there may be a weight at
(41:49):
the bathroom, and there may be a lot of people
with you know, a lot of crackling energy.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
But it's worth it because, as Lou Tong said, it
searches the dry rivulets of the soul, helps you find
the stories of five thousand scrolls. Yeah, I'd say that
still checks out caffeine effects on cognition.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
At the same time, though it was also used during
this time as of treatment for everything from poor eyesight
to skin and organ issues. It was also considered a
strong preventative medicine and something that positively impacted one's chi.
So we again, so we're seeing like the full spectrum
here of possible and perceived uses for tea that benefited
(42:28):
your current ailments, prevented other ailments, and maybe even affected
sort of spiritual energy concepts regarding the functionality of the
human body.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yes, now, because we've raised the question in the historical
context here of beliefs about t and its positive impacts
on health, I think it's worth looking at what's some
of the modern major nutrition science findings on the health
effects of tr But strong caveat I'm not going to
go deep on this because I just feel personally, like,
(43:01):
you know, we look at a lot of different domains
of science, and I feel like there is no quicker
way to lose your mind than looking for scientific papers
on a question of is this common food or drink
item good or bad for your health? Coffee, tea, chocolate, wine,
a million other things. It always seems like there are
just reams of conflicting results, some of which sound prima
(43:24):
faci absurd and probably are, you know, like a study
show wine cures heart disease or something like that. And
I detect the presence of persistent methodological problems with attempts
to look at this kind of thing specifically, like does
a common food or drink item that people consume for
pleasure or for other reasons have you know, X broad
(43:46):
health effect. But with that caveat, I'm going to cite
the findings of a major meta analysis that I looked
at from twenty nineteen. So this was by Mengshi Yi
called Tea Consumption and Health Outcome Umbrella Review of Meta
Analysis of Observational Studies in Humans. This was published in
the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research and twenty nineteen.
(44:10):
So this study is an umbrella review, also known as
a review of reviews, which kind of gives you an
idea how much research there is on the topic, so
to picture where this rests in the research hierarchy. Of course,
you can have individual studies or experiments on the effect
of tea on some particular outcome, and then you can
have a paper a level above that, which is a
(44:32):
review or a meta analysis, which compares and analyzes and
usually averages the results of many different individual studies of
a bunch. You know, it collects everything it can find
in the literature and says, when you compare all these
what results poke out. And then if you have enough
of those reviews within a subject area, you can have
an umbrella review, which is a review of reviews. And
(44:53):
sometimes umbrella reviews are going to have like a broader question. So,
for example, you can have a meta analysis of studies
on the relationship between T and cardiovascular disease, and another
one comparing studies on TA and various cancers, and then
you could maybe have an umbrella review looking at all
those meta analyzes to understand the relationship between T and
(45:14):
health outcomes. More generally, Okay, so sorry about all that preamble.
But anyway, what did this umbrella review find in the
existing literature as of twenty nineteen. Well, it looked at
ninety six meta analyzes addressing forty different health outcomes and
it concluded that overall, studies showed greater evidence for health
benefits than for harm to health from T consumption. So
(45:37):
they say, quote dose response analysis of T consumption indicates
reduced risks of total mortality, cardiac death, coronary artery disease, stroke,
and type two diabetes melitis with increment of two to
three cups per day. Beneficial associations are also found for
several cancers, skeletal, cognitive, and maternal outcomes. Harmful associations are
(45:59):
found for a soft geal cancer and gastric cancer when
the temperature of intake is more than fifty five to
sixty degrees celsius. So this leads them to the conclusion
that except for the upper digestive cancer risk that may
be associated with drinking very hot tea and again greater
than fifty five to sixty degrees c is about one
(46:20):
thirty one to one forty degrees fahrenheit. Unless you're drinking
tea that hot or hotter, normal levels of tea consumption,
such as two to three cups per day, appear safe,
and those levels of tea intake are even associated with
a broad range of apparently positive health effects, the ones
I mentioned in a minute ago. However, this is a
(46:40):
very important thing to stress. They acknowledge the difficulty in
disentangling regular dietary TA consumption from possible confounding variables, and
so they argue that to really conclude that the observed
associations are causal, So you know, for example, finding that
t consumption two to three cups per day might be
(47:02):
associated with like reduced risk of cardiac death or something
like that. In order to really be sure that the
tea is the cause of that and not just some
random association, you would need to do randomized controlled trials.
And this is often true. I think when you're looking
at connections between like common food or drink items and
health outcomes, you might find that any random thing. People
(47:25):
who eat kelp on a regular basis have a lower
risk of pancreatic cancer, but that doesn't actually show that
it's the kelp that makes the difference. It could be
that people who have a lower risk of that cancer. Also,
for some reason, just happen to eat more kelp, And
the best way to establish the kelp is the cause
would again be to do a randomized controlled trial, which
(47:46):
is the gold standard use for testing new drugs and
so forth, but not always used to examine the health
effects of common food and drink items such as coffee, chocolate, tea,
all these things that you see a million conflicting study
results on tea helps this health effect, and then another
study says on maybe it doesn't. So in the end,
I think it's hard to get very solid results on
(48:09):
these kind of food and drink items. But at least
the existing research today makes it look like broadly tea
is pretty safe to drink as long as you're drinking
it within moderation and not super hot, and may in
fact have some positive health benefits associated with it, but
don't bank on those too much.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Well, these are all great points, Like depending on the study,
you might be it might be a situation where it's
the tea cakes that are causing all of the positive
health effects.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Right, Yeah, it may not be causal about drinking the
tea at all. Maybe it's that people who have lower
risk of whatever are also just for some reason cultural
or otherwise more likely to drink tea. Or it could
be that the act of sitting down and drinking something
warm from a cup. I mean, I don't know what
all they compared it to, what controls they used on
all these different experiments, because there have been a lot
of them. But that's where the research show looks like
(48:56):
it lands today. But I did want to note that
positive health effects of tea could exist and might also
be construed, not in an absolute sense, but in the
sense of comparing tea to alternatives, to other things you
could consume instead of tea.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Yeah, And in this I want to turn to a
quote from the herbal classic that I think we reference
this work in the last episode. It is attributed to
Shinnong again, the divine farmer with the crystal stomach that
is in some of the myths, is attributed as discovering tea,
(49:34):
and the quote resis follows in translation, quote Tea is
better than wine, for it leadeth not to intoxication, neither
does it cause a man to say foolish things and
repent thereof in his sober moments. It is better than water,
for it does not carry disease. Neither does it act
like poison as water does when it contains foul and
(49:54):
rotten matter.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Hey, that's the couple of I would say, quite solid observations.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to agree that
the over indulgence of tea is less of a public
or health or safety issue compared to the consumption of alcohol.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Yeah. And then, as Martin points out in her book,
this last bit is also certainly true. Tea prepared with
boiling water would rid the water of many of the
inherent pathogens. So if you're just looking at the difference
between having a hot cup of tea and drinking or
rain water or something or any kind of water that
(50:33):
might be on hand for pure drinking purposes, the tea
is a healthier choice historically speaking, that seems quite true
as long as people are, of course not consuming that
seventh cup of tea and you know, rapturing themselves to
the Holy Mountain.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Right, Yeah, you don't want to accidentally fly to pung
Lie before you get to work in the morning.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Right. And yet, to your point, just the idea of
your drinking tea, then what are you not drinking? You're
not drinking alcohol. You're not drinking wine, you're not drinking
water that may, given the circumstances, might not be the
purest or the healthiest choice at that time. Yeah, this
is all fascinating.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
I think that's going to do it for part two, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
I think this is all we have time for in
this episode, but we'll come back for a part three.
We're gonna look a little more at the history and
evolution of tea and possibly get into some other tea
cultures as well, and we'll see what else comes up.
In the meantime. We'd love to hear from everyone out there,
because I know we have a lot of tea drinkers
out there, tea drinkers from different parts of the world,
different tastes, different experiences. We'd love to hear everything you
(51:41):
have to say about the matter, So write in let
us know. I'd love to hear from you. A reminder
that core episodes of Just to Blow Your Mind published
on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Monday is listener Mail. Wednesday is
a short form artifact or monster fact, and on Fridays
we set aside most serious concerns to talk about a
weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Huge thanks to our our audio producer, JJ Posway. If
you would like to get in touch with us with
feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We're
heading into the vault for an older episode of Stuff
to Blow Your Mind. This is part two of our
series on Tea. Part one ran last Saturday. This was
originally published February seventh, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Enjoy the Immortal Dan Chew abandoned eating jade elixirs, picking
tea instead. He drank and grew feathered wings. The world
is unaware of the mansion of imminent and hidden immortals.
People do not know of the palace of transmuting bone
into clouds. The lad of Cloudy Mountain blended it in
(00:47):
a gold cauldron. How hollow the fame of the Man
of Chew and his book of Tea. Late on a
frosty night, breaking cakes off fragrant tea brewed to overflowing
the pale yellow frog, I sip and am reborn. Bestowed
by the gentleman. This tea dispels my suffering, cleansing my
(01:07):
mind from worry and fear. Come morning, the emotions of
the fragrant brazier remain intoxicated. Still we walk across the
clouds reflected in Tiger Stream in high song I send
the gentleman off.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. That is from
a song of Drinking Tea on the departure of Zing
Wrong by jou Ran. This particular bit of Chinese poetry
I came across when I was reading a blog post
(01:56):
four ancient Chinese poems on tea in one Symphony. This
was on the website Tranquility Tuesdays, and I found this
one interesting because the author of this piece pointed out
that the piece that we opened the first episode off
with the seven bowls of Tea is just very well cited.
You'll find it referenced in just about any history of tea.
(02:18):
It frequently shows up on tea blogs and so forth.
The author here noted that, you know, given that it is,
you know, over sighted, that one should also include other
poems of note, and this is one such poem well so.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
In the original poem, I'd say the major theme was
sort of the mounting levels of experience that come with
each successive cup of tea up until you hit the
danger zone, crossing the threshold from the sixth to the
dreaded seventh cup. In this case, what would you say
The main themes are I see here kind of a
(02:51):
community or a filial aspect to the tea talking about
you know, the lab bruise it, and then these two
drink it together. Sure exactly who these two people are
supposed to be?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, there's definitely more of an earth bound since here
I'm getting you know. It is, of course beautifully written
and has that kind of ethereal quality to it as well.
But the tea is not just taking you and transforming
you into an immortal and sending you to a mythical lands.
It's making you feel reborn, but also all of the
(03:24):
world as well, or at least that's my interpretation of it.
So anyway, Yeah, this is part two of our look
at Tea. We're already hearing from some folks regarding our
first episode, and in the second episode we're going to
continue the journey. So go back and listen to part
one if you haven't heard it yet, because in that
last episode we discussed the botanical facts concerning tea, as
(03:47):
well as some myths about its origin. But now that
we've established what tea is and where it's spring from,
and referenced some of the mythological ideas about tea and
read a couple of poems, this most recent was Tanged Honesty,
by the way, at this point, I think it's time
to discuss the history of tea in a little more detail,
especially as it concerns the ways that it can be
(04:09):
prepared and was prepared across time. So I think it
makes sense, first of all, to just look at some
of the steps that are frequently employed in preparing tea
after it's been harvest what happens between it growing on
the plant that we discussed in part one and somehow
(04:32):
making it into a cup or bowl of tea the beverage.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Right, and so one thing we talked about in the
previous episode is how different types of tea that you get,
say black tea versus green tea versus white or oolong,
they will usually be from the same plant or the
same of a couple of variants of this plant, Camellia senensus.
There's one tea plant, and so the differences you get
in the different teas are based on how it is
(04:59):
processed and prepared.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Right, right. So one of the books I've been looking
at here is Laura C. Martin's A History of Tea,
and I think the author does a fabulous job laying
out the history and also the different steps involved in
creating these beverages of tea. She points out that no
matter what sort of tea preparation you're talking about, certain
(05:22):
steps are common to many of them. Not all varieties
of tea involve all the steps, but it's worth going
over them all and then we can say, well, this
one doesn't involve this step, and this one does involve
this step.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay. So it starts, of course, with the gathering of
the leaves. Usually on tea farms, they will be collected
as flushes, these sort of top buds of a couple
leaves and a shoot coming off the top of the plant.
Those will be harvested and the rest of the plant
will be left there to produce new flushes in the future.
And so you gather a bunch of these flushes of leaves,
and then what do you do with them?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, you could, I guess, just stick them in your mouth.
But here's the thing. If you do that in certainly
we have some of these tails of some of these
mythical origins of tea saying that's what happened, people stuck
it in their mouth, And you know that might well
be connected to some of the original ways that human
beings explore the natures of the tea plant leaves and
even gain some of the effects. But if you just
(06:16):
stick them in your mouth and start chewing, it's going
to be really bitter. So this is at this point
we have the first step of withering. So the fresh
green leaves and buds are dried out, either in a
heated room of some sort or they're left in the sun,
and this causes the starch in the leaves to begin
transforming into sugar and the moisture content drops by fifty
(06:38):
to eighty percent, and this allows the next possible step
to take place, which is the rolling of the tea
leaves and then be able to roll it without breaking
the leaves. This is something you might have to think
back to your childhood days of like playing with leaves
and sticks. But sometimes if a leaf is fresh and
you go to like roll it up, it's going to
(06:58):
it's going to break, all right. The rolling part here
is often done via machines today but was historically done
by hand, and the rolling without breaking here twists and
crushes the leaves in a way that releases SAP, exposes
it to oxygen, and stimulates fermentation. Additional rolling and or
(07:19):
sifting may take place here as well, so that's step two. Now.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
One reason you might be rolling or sort of bruising
these leaves in some way essentially handling them roughly, is
in order to stimulate oxidation. Oxidation in general refers to
a broad class of chemical reactions that take place when
molecules are exposed to oxygen or another oxidizing agent, and
(07:45):
a core feature of an oxidation reaction is that the
molecules that are getting oxidized are losing electrons, but that
doesn't tell as much. It's usually it's some type of
chemical reaction. Now, it's interesting that the deliberate oxidation of
tea leaves is an important stage in their processing, especially
for producing darker teas, less so for greener teas, because
(08:08):
most often oxidation in foods is not something you want.
It's an undesirable outcome associated with spoilage and ransidity. So
some examples, and I guess these would be the closest analogies.
There are oxidation reactions of various types, like there's oxidation
of fats and so forth in oils. But for an
(08:29):
analogy in plants, think about when you cut an apple.
So you cut an apple in half and you leave
it out on the counter. What happens, Oh, it turns brown, right,
And this browning is not generally considered good. It's not
something that makes the apple harmful to eat, but most
of the time people don't find it very appetizing. It
changes the appearance and sometimes the flavor and texture as well,
(08:52):
and you know, tastes can vary, but most people would
not say that is a type of browning that they
seek out on purpose. And this is actually true of
many foods, especially fruits. So you can think of the
way avocados brown once they're cut or smashed and left
out on the counter, or potatoes or any number of
other plant based foods. The chemical reaction taking place here
(09:12):
is a form of oxidation called enzymatic browning and insomatic
browning is due to an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase. Fruits
and vegetables have compounds in them called phenolic compounds, and
when these compounds get exposed to both oxygen and to
that enzyme to polyphenol oxidase at the same time. They
(09:35):
react with the oxygen and go through a multi step
transformation process that ends with them turning into melanin. Melanin
is a natural brown pigment that you can find in
all forms of life. It's in plants, it's in fungi,
it's in animals including us. It's the brown pigment in
human hair and skin and inner irises. And so that
(09:57):
process naturally takes place once you cut an apple or
a banana or any of these foods. But how come
this chemical reaction turning phenolic compounds into melanin doesn't happen
once the when the apple is just like sitting there
on the counter uncut. How come it only happens once
you cut it. This is because in order for the
reaction to happen, we need three different substances to come
(10:19):
into contact with one another. So you need the phenolic
compounds the base molecules were transforming. You need the enzyme,
which in this case is polyphenol oxidase, and you need
the free oxygen in the air. And when all three
elements are present, there together, then you get this browning process.
So in plant tissue, the enzyme, the polyphenol oxidase, and
(10:42):
the phenolic compounds are usually kept separate from one another.
But damage to the plant, such as cutting it open
or bashing it and bruising it, will rupture cells and
cause these chemicals to blend together and unite, And then
you expose them to air and the oxidation happens. Now,
coming back to what I said earlier, ensomatic browning is
(11:04):
considered undesirable in lots of foods like you know you
do you, but most people would rather eat their apple slices, bananas, avocados,
and so forth before they sit out on the counter
for a few hours and turn brown. The browned versions
of these plants kind of look and taste degraded, not
exactly fresh. But in other plants, the browning process has
(11:26):
a desirable outcome. It is used on purpose to achieve
desirable improvements in appearance, texture, and flavor. One example would
be in certain dried fruits like raisins go through enzomatic
browning it deliberately in order to create new and interesting
flavors that people like. And another example might be in
seeds or leaves used to prove strongly flavored caffeinated beverages.
(11:51):
Oxidative browning is specifically sought out as part of the
preparation process for tea leaves. So you can think about
the process of say, rolling tea leaves around, like smashing
them or rolling them in a tumbler of some kind
in order to kind of like bruise and just rough
up the leaves to these get these different compounds coming together,
(12:15):
and expose them to oxygen to trigger the sprowning process. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I like to come back to the apple example, the
apple that's spilt, it falls out of the bowl and
falls off the counter and rolls across the floor. You know,
that's the one that gets all bruised up, and those
bruises are brown. That's the oxidation taking place.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, exactly. And again you know you don't usually want
that in an apple, but it turns out you do
it to a tea leaf, and oh it's producing all
these nice, interesting new aromas and flavors. It's making the
tea taste. I think a lot of tea producers would
say it makes it. It sort of takes away some
of the fresh, grassy flavor of green tea and introduces
these complex sweet flavors that taste more like a floral
(12:55):
aromas or like fruits.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, it creates this whole additional dimension of flavor. Now,
this this stage of oxidation here, Martin stresses that it
is it's super important for determining the flavor destination of
the tea. It typically takes about three hours if it
is done. The leaves are left on trays and a cool,
damp place often and the oxidation causes them to turn
(13:19):
from green to kind of a copper color. They also
heat up during this phase, and you also and you
have to depending on exactly what you're doing with the
tea leaves, you may have to halt it as well,
because you don't want the oxidation to go too far,
because then you'll end up with what's described as kind
of a burnt taste. It's also really important to note
here that not all teas go through this phase, and
(13:42):
this should seem pretty obvious that black tea does go
through the oxidation phase and is therefore fully oxidized. Yeah,
that is why it is this black or red color.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah. And to and to pick up on and clarify
something you said a minute ago, heating, I think is
usually specifically used to stop the oxidation process. So if
you want a green tea that has a nice fresh,
sort of grassy vegetable flavor and keeps its green color,
those are usually going to be heated earlier to stop
the oxidation from progressing any further, whereas a black tea
(14:15):
you would let go through way more oxidation before heating
it in a little oven.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Now, just this is a cultivation note, but I ended
up throwing it into my notes here, so I'm going
to read it before I forget about it. Originally, tea
trees were, of course wild, and they would grow in
the wild, and they grew quite tall. The higher leaves
were obtained by simply cutting down the tree. This wouldn't
work long term, of course, and so with cultivation comes
(14:41):
the pruning and the non lethal harvesting of the leaves.
So I just found that interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Okay, So that's why you get this process of like
taking the flushes off of the top instead of fully
culing the plant.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, but back to the process. Okay, so we've had
we've had the first step here of withering, then rolling,
then oxidation, and then we get into the step of drying.
This is a quick drying to stop the oxidation at
desired levels, So we've kind of alluded to this already
as well as to remove enough moisture to prevent mold
(15:12):
from forming. But you also can't dry it out too
much or the tea could again taste burnt or on
the other end of the spectrum, it could lose its flavor.
All right, And then with the fourth step done, we're
under the fifth and this is grating and sorting. Basically,
what you're left with. You got to figure out what
you've got, and generally what you have is you have
whole leaves, you have broken leaves, you have the dinnings,
(15:34):
and you have dust. Whole is the best, that's the
highest quality, while and then broken leaves and then fannings
and dust that tends to go into cheaper things like
you know, tea bags and so forth. Again, not all
teas go through all of these phases. Black tea goes
through all five. Oolong tea is partially oxidized. Green teas
(15:55):
are dried after rolling to prevent oxidation at all. White
tea doesn't go through withering, fermentation or rolling. Now, this
doesn't cover anywhere near all the teas out there. In
the different types of teas, there are plenty of sub
varieties of each, and then there are blends as well,
Like one common example is English Breakfast Tea, which is
a blend of black teas.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Now there's a whole other class of complex chemical reactions
that teas undergo, separate from the baseline oxidation process we've
been talking about, which is fermentation, a whole other thing
where you are deliberately introducing microbial growth to further create
complex flavors and aromas.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
That's right, And at this point I want to mention
the poorer teas. These are a special case. These are
again one of my favorite tea varieties, and actually our
producer jj I was chatting with him he also really
likes these, and I imagine we have a number of
listeners who are fond of these as well.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
But these are fermented teas, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's so these teas are generally made from larger, older
leaves that I believe Martin described as almost being kind
of like hairy, you know, they're they're they're they're really
big old leaves. And also there's an enough moisture is
allowed to remain in them, so that they can continue
to ferment for years. Uh. This is this is the
(17:22):
only variety of tea that improves with age. The teas
stored away in bricks or cakes. Also, they're often various wrappings,
like sometimes it's like a like a bamboo type situation
or some sort of fabric wrapping and and ends up
with just a wide beret of flavors that are at
least in my experience, unlike any other teas I've tried,
(17:45):
h they often have the ones I've I keep coming
back to have kind of a often kind of like
a barnyard flavor, kind of straw or hay to them.
One of them that I really love is just especially dark.
It's like it's like a bowl or a cup of midnight.
And like I say, they're often you often you'll find
these in kind of like a loose leaf situation, but
(18:05):
you also find them in little pucks, little bricks, big
cakes that you have to chip away with a special
little ornate knife. I mean you could use a normal
butter knife or your car keys, I guess, but you know,
get into it. This is tea we're talking about. But
these have a fascinating history not only as just being
t bricks, but being used as money as well, with
(18:29):
the prime example being taking place in Tibet. As Wolfgang
Birch points out in the use of tea bricks as
currency among the Tibetans in the Tibet Journal, the Chinese
introduced tea to Tibet sometime prior to seven eighty c.
And while it was first used as more of a
pure bartering commodity, you know, I'll trade you a brick
(18:51):
of tea for this, that or the other, it eventually
took on a form that we might reasonably refer to
as currency, a regimented system of tea e bricks based
on the tea's quality and pureeness, and eventually imprinted with
trademarks and seals. So you might think of it almost like,
you know, you think of like a bar of gold
that has been imprinted with governmental information, Like here's the
(19:15):
seal of the of the governing body saying this is
an approved grade of gold, the amount of gold, et cetera.
It's the exact same thing with these t bricks. The
governing authority has said this is such and such tea
of such and such quality, and it is a certain
amount of it. It's usable as currency in this scenario.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
That's interesting. It makes me think, I don't know this,
but I'm wondering. So in this case, would this have
been a fermented type of tea since it's in yet form.
That makes me think about how, you know, if you're
going to try to use a commonly consumed, say food
or drink item as a currency, it would be difficult
to use one that quickly degrades in quality, for like
(19:57):
its use value. So if it's something we're freshness really matters,
you would not want the use value of your currency
to degrade fast over the course of a few months.
But if it's like a fermented tea, you mentioned that
these get better with age rather than declining, so you
can at least hope your currency there keeps its value.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, yeah, it would keep its value. Of anything, it
would increase in value, though I don't remember reading anything
about how that would be decided upon, but I guess
it would be subject to like the going rate for
te's of a particular harvest and maturity level, you know,
like you all the information would be there on the seal.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
This is a side note. I wonder how economies are
different when they have a currency that does have in
some cases a use value of its own, like you know,
if you're not going to use it for trade, you
would use it for something else, like you would literally
eat it or drink it, versus economies that just have
a currency that is purely useless on its own, it's
(21:00):
only for facilitating trade, like US dollars.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, I mean for gold, I guess is not quite
an example of that, because even historically gold was still
desired as something that could be used for ornamentation, whereas
today it also has technology electronics uses as well.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
The other really good example of this is the use
of chocolate in some Mesoamerican cultures, where that the chocolate
was such a highly regarded commodity and one that I
guess had kind of generalized sizes and measurements that it
could be used as currency as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Interesting question. Maybe we'll come back to that one day.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, So at this point that we might get more
into the timeline of tea with the primary interest in
sort of the evolution of the way that it is
prepared and ultimately consumed. As we explored in the last episode,
the origin of tea drinking is more mythology than historical fact.
It's one of the those things where if you try
and answer the question of, like, well, who invented tea?
(22:04):
Who came up with this? It's basically lost to prehistory.
These are things where we have some interesting myths that
kind of sum up some of the general ideas and
ultimately some of the general realities of how human beings
experimented with and chronicled the nature of their botanical world.
(22:25):
But in general we can't answer it. There's no one person.
Though again, some of these accounts do have a sort
of an interesting shred of truth to them, like one
of the ones that, in addition to the ones we
discussed in the last episode, there's one that Michael d.
Co brings up in seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient
World in a chapter about I Believe Chocolate and Tea.
(22:46):
There's another myth where a past Chinese emperor was boiling
some water and some wild leaves just kind of blew
into his water, boiling in the pot, thus creating tea.
That of course sounds like pure myth and is not
like a real story, but it reminds me of our
episode on the invention of the cauldron, and about how
like a cauldron or any kind of container even like
(23:08):
a skin of boiling water, Like what an essential laboratory
that is for humans in ancient times? Figuring out what
things are and what they can be used for. Now,
the question that may come up for some of you
might think, well, there's a great deal of Chinese literature
out there going back quiet a way. Can't we just
see when people first started writing about tea? And I
(23:30):
think this is a reasonable question to ask. But as
Martin explains in the book, it's not quite that simple.
And part of the problem is that the Chinese character
associated with t was previously used again in literature, in
writing to refer to other shrubs and plants. For example,
there are mentions of tea dating back to the fifth
(23:53):
century BCE, but it's thought that the character in question
here is just referring to south thistle, a plant sometimes
used in Chinese cuisine and native to Europe and Western Asia.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Oh okay, so yeah, frustrating trying to understand the history.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah yeah, So we have to think about the fact
that anytime something like this comes along, like it's not
just oh, we have this new thing, let's get a
new word for it, but that's in any language. That's
not necessarily how it works. I'm reminded of all the
different apples that Europeans began to discover in the world
and report back, Yeah, palm de tear. So again, we
(24:32):
can't pinpoint a time when tea drinking began in China,
but we can likely say it was certainly a thing
by the Han dynasty two o six PC through twenty
twenty CE. Granted that's a large period of time, but
by that period people were drinking tea. It most likely
began in Sichuan Province in southwestern China and spread gradually
(24:55):
to the rest of China, and would have reached northern
China by the Tang dynasty that period six eighteen through
nine o seven by the third century, though, according to Martin,
we do have mentions in the literature of tea that
we can more firmly connect to actual tea drinking, which
points out that Hatwo, a noted physician who may have
also developed one of the earliest forms of anesthesia, also
(25:18):
wrote about tea quote, to drink tea constantly makes one
think better.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
That checks out, well, it depends on what you mean
by constantly. Yeah, I'm not sure about the particulars of
the translation. There By the way, the anesthesia that he
supposedly invented, I think they was reading that the name
literally transplates to cannabis boiling powder, but we still don't
know exactly what this supposed anesthesia contained. Also, a general
(25:47):
from the third century, lou Kuhn, wrote that he felt old,
depressed and needed some real tea when just the impression
he that he's out doing the military thing and he
just realizes, Man, I'm just I'm old, I'm sad, and
I would just kill for an actual cup of tea
instead of I guess boiling various other things that we're
finding in in nature around us M. So you could
(26:12):
you could have fake teas. There's like, if you can't
get real tea from Camellia sinensis, you might just try
boiling other plant matter.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, I mean, the history of tea is kind of
full of these examples, and not only the history of tea,
but I guess the history of of like pharmacology, and
that's no pharmacology in general. I think we've touched a
little bit on this before talking about psychedelics, where you'll
have some historians think you'll have one particular custom of
(26:40):
using a particular herb or plant that is growing in
the natural environment. But what happens when people move? What
happens when there's a migration. Yes, in many cases you
can bring your plants with you. Sometimes those plants don't
survive though, Sometimes they can't be brought anyway, or you
just that the people that bring them are not able
to keep those plants going in these new places they
(27:02):
move to. And in those cases you might try to
find some sort of reasonable facsimile, like what's something else
that does something that changes me a little bit when
I boil it in water and drink it. So we
may come back to some of that in a pit.
And then Martin also points that by let's say, around
three point fifty CE, there's a more detailed description of
(27:23):
the tea plant that we seem pretty sure is an
actual description of tea. And this is provided by go
Poo again around three fifty C.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Now, I guess one thing I wonder is it's one
thing to talk about. Okay, we're taking leaves of this
specific plant and boiling them to make tea, But it's
another thing to think about, like all of the complex
preparation process steps and the different varieties of tea pretty today.
Do you have any idea when that sort of thing
(28:02):
started to come online, or at least when we have
the earliest evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, this is this is interesting because one thing that
Martin points out is that early on tea was probably
not good. It would have been nothing like what we're
having today. It would have been we could almost think
of it more as kind of this herbal soup, and
you'd have various things added to it in an attempt
to improve the flavor profile. And you might be thinking, oh,
(28:28):
like delightful flowers and stuff. No, things like onions might
be added. It is just a way to improve the flavor.
And I believe Martin, I believe mentioned that this probably
also didn't work. It was just so strong a flavor
you couldn't really improve on it all that much. But
you drank it because you know it was there were
already some healthful associations with it, and you know, maybe
(28:51):
it wasn't making it was sick because it was boiled,
et cetera. But during the time of the Northern Way
Dynasty three eighty six through five thirty five, apparently the
tea processing had improved, at least to what we might
think of as a basic level. There are mentions of
cakes made of tea leaves that have been roasted. It
was probably still a lot cruder compared to things that
(29:14):
were gonna come, or certainly cruder than things that you
would think of today as desirable teas. But the journey
toward more complex flavors was underway, and I'm assuming you
were maybe not having to put onions in your tea
anymore now. During the fifth century CE, there's also examples
(29:35):
of tea tributes being made to the imperial court and
to the emperor himself, and also the emperor was said
to have his own tea reserves as well, like these
were places where just the emperor's tea was grown. So
already it was presumably flavors are improving, and also the
ruling class, the elites of society are really getting attached
(29:57):
to the idea of tea. But then the Tang dynasty
six eighteen through nine oh seven, this is the period
in which we see Chinese tea in the form of
baked bricks of green tea, which are ideal for travel,
spreading to new parts of the Empire and beyond. Martin
also writes that this widespread technique also greatly improved the flavor.
(30:18):
The popularity of tea spread so much during this time
that it was no longer just a drink of the
elite of the emperor and his court. It was a
drink for everybody, even peasants by this point were we're
getting in on tea culture. That doesn't mean everybody would
have access to the same tea. Of course, with the
type of tea you drank would be intrinsically linked to
(30:41):
your place in society, as would the various paraphernalia that
were used in tea preparation and tea consumption, but it
was essentially something that could be found throughout society. Also,
this would again have been exclusively green tea, as red
black tea would not be developed for centuries to come.
And this is the time of an individual by the
(31:03):
name of lou U. This would have been in the
eighth century. He was known as the Immortal of T
the Sage of T, and he was author of the
Classic of.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
T The Classic of T. I see a similarity in
the English naming convention of some of these great old
Chinese texts similar to like the Classic of Mountains and
Seas exactly, Yes, I forget exactly what that is translated from, though,
Like what are all the range of meanings in the original?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, but certainly this is a common translation of
some of these important books. I would think you could.
You might roughly think of it the same way that
important books might in the Western traditions might be preferred
to as like the book of such and such or
a chronicle of such and such.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Now, this is an interesting figure Louu though, because there
are a number of legends about him as well. You know,
he's definitely a historic individual and author. It seems that
folks agree on that. But there are all these additional stories,
such as that he was abandoned and subsequently adopted by
Buddhist monks. Also, there's this other story that he and
(32:12):
I think these all kind of work together, or at
least were eventually stitched together into one narrative that he
was then trained. He then trained to be a clown
in the opera, and this was his lifelong ambition, but
then he ended up becoming a scholar instead. He started
spending a lot of time in tea houses, which was
a popular hangout at the time. And this reminds me
(32:33):
a bit of accounts of tea and coffee houses in
later European history as a kind of like cultural incubator.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, a place where like the poet resides.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah. Yeah. And so he has this supposed trajectory that's
pretty interesting, Like he starts off as as an abandoned child,
becomes a monk, then becomes a clown, then becomes a scholar,
and then essentially becomes the immortal of tea.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
It implies tea being kind of like the highest level achievable.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, it does. And I think that matches up with
the way that he was received and regarded. But it
goes beyond like you might think, Okay, he wrote this
scholarly work about tea, and I bet the scholarly class
really loved it. But as Martin points out, this work
had a huge impact on tea and society, as it
gave agriculturists and farmers the first real written account of
(33:25):
how to cultivate and process tea. Everything before the Classic
of Tea was just orally transmitted or was unknown to
individuals who might want to partake of it and cultivate
their own tea. His work made tea cultivation accessible, and
it included everything that was known at the time about tea,
(33:46):
where you could grow it, how to grow it, how
to harvest it and prepare it, the culture of drinking it,
the twenty four implements required to prepare tea in the home,
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Whoa, that's a lot of implements, Yeah, and a lot
of just sort of advice on what is proper.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Like. For instance, I was reading in Martin that he
was a big fan of using blue glazed cups to
enhance the green color of the tea, while he thought
that white cups or bowls would give it a distasteful
pink color.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
This is interesting in part because it reminds me of
the passages in Plenty of the Elder where he's like, Hey,
if you're gonna boil like some sweet sapa to drink,
you better do it in a lead pot instead of
a copper one, because the copper makes it bitter, the
lead makes it sweet. I assume he's not talking about
actual changes in flavor here, but truly just appearance. But
(34:42):
this is also quite observant because I think, as like
chefs and people who work in restaurants will tell you
the appearance and color of your plates really does affect
how people perceive the food.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And then of course there's so much
ritual on top of all of this, you know. Martin
stresses that while some of this might seem just you know,
over the top and perhaps too fancy, we have to
remind ourselves that this is a world where individuals like
lou U are striving for universal perfection. So that's and
(35:17):
we have to think about it too in light of Confucianism, Taoism,
and Buddhism as well, which are all important energies in
the world surrounding this growing tea culture. Now, the popularity
of the Classic of Teas not only spread the word
of tea, it also further enhanced its popularity and pushed
both greater tea trade and greater advancements in how it
(35:40):
was cultivated and prepared. Tea also spread throughout China during
this time because it had become just so embraced by
Buddhist practice and culture. But it's also meant that when
Buddhism fell out of favor during the decline of the
Tang dynasty, tea culture did as well. And this would
this was a trend that would recur when foreign invaders
(36:01):
would control parts of China, Tea culture would suffer in
that area.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Interesting, does that mean it was replaced by something or
I wonder what caused that correlation.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
It's based on what I was reading, and there may
be more nuanced to this, and more and more to this,
but it would just be a situation where it was
linked with the with the ruling party. You know, it's
kind of like a top down cultural practice and without
without Tea culture emanating from sort of a you know,
(36:36):
in radiating waves from the ruling body, it kind of
falls out of favor and you have people maybe following,
and you're going to have cultural trans transmission taking place
there too. Of course, because you also see in the
in the histories where you know, some some groups, say
the Mongols becomes the ruling body in a part of China,
they also become more Chinese as they rule, So you know,
(37:00):
the cultural transmission goes both ways. But it seems like
you would have these situations where a foreign power would
take control for a while and yet just Tea popularity
would wane, but then when inevitably Chinese rule was restored
to these areas you would see the reverse and one
of the examples of this would be nine sixty. See
(37:24):
the rule of the Song dynasty brought tea back to
the forefront. Its trade during this period became so important
that the Imperial court found that they could just restrict
or manipulate the flow of tea to outlying regions if
deemed necessary. So it would be a way to control
and manipulate other groups, such as determining how much tea
(37:46):
goes to, say, to bat or to the Mongols, or
to the Turks and others. Almost kind of like a
spice trade of Dune sort of scenario, you know. And
certainly that's the sort of thing that Frank Herbert was
thinking of when he was right. Maybe not tea specifically,
but obviously this control of a desired or vital resource
(38:07):
by one particular body.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
It's also during this time period, Martin rights, that we
enter the second school or phase of tea. So this
first phase had been the brick era. Again, we're talking
about those bricks of tea, you know, how it's dried
and then often stored, et cetera. But then we're entering
at this point the whipped school and It's called the
(38:30):
whipped school due to the creation and popularity of dried
and powdered green tea that was then whipped in boiling
water till it's foamy. This is what we typically call
macha tea today, and it was a huge hit during
this time period. Of course, has remained whip us.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Oh that's interesting, Okay, I guess I do associate macha
tea with looking kind of foamy, but I didn't realize
why that was. So it's like typically more of a
powder form that is whipped into the water vigorously.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah. Yeah, like generally you'll have and we'll probably come
back around them to macha here in a bit and
talk about it in especially in relation to Japanese tea culture.
But yeah, even if you get it today, you're probably
gonna get some sort of one variety or another of macha,
perhaps like a ceremonial grade tea. You're gonna put that
in your in your bowl or cup, and once you
(39:21):
have the hot water, you're gonna you're gonna want to
whip it up. There's gonna be a special implement to
do that, and this of course can also be quite exceptional.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Okay, So we go from brick to the whipped powder,
and then does it does it change after that, because
that still doesn't resemble the most of the tea preparation
I can think of today, which is based on steeping.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Right right, Well, that is gonna eventually be the third school,
the school of steeping, as in like loose leaf tea especially,
and we are still in this school today, Martin Wright.
So of course all three of these are still used.
I don't know if there's gonna be a fourth phase
of tea.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I don't know the laser school of tea.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
All right, there's more to the history of tea, and
we'll keep going with the history of tea in a
future episode here, but I thought it might be fun
at this point to discuss tea and health.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Now.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I mentioned earlier how Martin pointed out that by the
fourth century CE, T consumption was probably part of daily
life for many in China, but it wasn't good. You
were having to mask it with things like you know,
sometimes things like citrus or ginger, which doesn't sound that bad,
but other times you're putting salt and onions in it,
all to try and make it more palpable. But you
were consuming it because it had perceived health benefits. You
(40:43):
also might just eat your tea leaves straight like a
vegetable in this time. Still, though again it would have
been bitter. It would not have been a pleasant experience.
You Also, I was surprised by this. You also might
have sniffed it like snuff, So that would be a
sort of a you know, an approach to powdered tea
that I didn't think about. Also, not what I'm saying
anyone needs to try, but it was one method that
(41:07):
was used, as was sometimes using it externally, like you know,
applying it just to the skin, or perhaps to some
sort of skin irritation like a poultice. Yeah, so it
was widely used during this time. Again not because it
was necessarily pleasant to have. But first of all, it
was associated with wakefulness and digestion, which I think these
(41:28):
are both agreed upon effects of caffeine. If you've had caffeine,
or explored caffeine, or even been around people that use caffeine,
you probably know that this is the case. Like caffeine
can can wake you up, it can make you more alert,
it can also speed up digestion. And yeah, and that's
why if you go to a coffee house or a
tea house these days, there may be a weight at
(41:49):
the bathroom, and there may be a lot of people
with you know, a lot of crackling energy.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
But it's worth it because, as Lou Tong said, it
searches the dry rivulets of the soul, helps you find
the stories of five thousand scrolls. Yeah, I'd say that
still checks out caffeine effects on cognition.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
At the same time, though it was also used during
this time as of treatment for everything from poor eyesight
to skin and organ issues. It was also considered a
strong preventative medicine and something that positively impacted one's chi.
So we again, so we're seeing like the full spectrum
here of possible and perceived uses for tea that benefited
(42:28):
your current ailments, prevented other ailments, and maybe even affected
sort of spiritual energy concepts regarding the functionality of the
human body.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yes, now, because we've raised the question in the historical
context here of beliefs about t and its positive impacts
on health, I think it's worth looking at what's some
of the modern major nutrition science findings on the health
effects of tr But strong caveat I'm not going to
go deep on this because I just feel personally, like,
(43:01):
you know, we look at a lot of different domains
of science, and I feel like there is no quicker
way to lose your mind than looking for scientific papers
on a question of is this common food or drink
item good or bad for your health? Coffee, tea, chocolate, wine,
a million other things. It always seems like there are
just reams of conflicting results, some of which sound prima
(43:24):
faci absurd and probably are, you know, like a study
show wine cures heart disease or something like that. And
I detect the presence of persistent methodological problems with attempts
to look at this kind of thing specifically, like does
a common food or drink item that people consume for
pleasure or for other reasons have you know, X broad
(43:46):
health effect. But with that caveat, I'm going to cite
the findings of a major meta analysis that I looked
at from twenty nineteen. So this was by Mengshi Yi
called Tea Consumption and Health Outcome Umbrella Review of Meta
Analysis of Observational Studies in Humans. This was published in
the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research and twenty nineteen.
(44:10):
So this study is an umbrella review, also known as
a review of reviews, which kind of gives you an
idea how much research there is on the topic, so
to picture where this rests in the research hierarchy. Of course,
you can have individual studies or experiments on the effect
of tea on some particular outcome, and then you can
have a paper a level above that, which is a
(44:32):
review or a meta analysis, which compares and analyzes and
usually averages the results of many different individual studies of
a bunch. You know, it collects everything it can find
in the literature and says, when you compare all these
what results poke out. And then if you have enough
of those reviews within a subject area, you can have
an umbrella review, which is a review of reviews. And
(44:53):
sometimes umbrella reviews are going to have like a broader question. So,
for example, you can have a meta analysis of studies
on the relationship between T and cardiovascular disease, and another
one comparing studies on TA and various cancers, and then
you could maybe have an umbrella review looking at all
those meta analyzes to understand the relationship between T and
(45:14):
health outcomes. More generally, Okay, so sorry about all that preamble.
But anyway, what did this umbrella review find in the
existing literature as of twenty nineteen. Well, it looked at
ninety six meta analyzes addressing forty different health outcomes and
it concluded that overall, studies showed greater evidence for health
benefits than for harm to health from T consumption. So
(45:37):
they say, quote dose response analysis of T consumption indicates
reduced risks of total mortality, cardiac death, coronary artery disease, stroke,
and type two diabetes melitis with increment of two to
three cups per day. Beneficial associations are also found for
several cancers, skeletal, cognitive, and maternal outcomes. Harmful associations are
(45:59):
found for a soft geal cancer and gastric cancer when
the temperature of intake is more than fifty five to
sixty degrees celsius. So this leads them to the conclusion
that except for the upper digestive cancer risk that may
be associated with drinking very hot tea and again greater
than fifty five to sixty degrees c is about one
(46:20):
thirty one to one forty degrees fahrenheit. Unless you're drinking
tea that hot or hotter, normal levels of tea consumption,
such as two to three cups per day, appear safe,
and those levels of tea intake are even associated with
a broad range of apparently positive health effects, the ones
I mentioned in a minute ago. However, this is a
(46:40):
very important thing to stress. They acknowledge the difficulty in
disentangling regular dietary TA consumption from possible confounding variables, and
so they argue that to really conclude that the observed
associations are causal, So you know, for example, finding that
t consumption two to three cups per day might be
(47:02):
associated with like reduced risk of cardiac death or something
like that. In order to really be sure that the
tea is the cause of that and not just some
random association, you would need to do randomized controlled trials.
And this is often true. I think when you're looking
at connections between like common food or drink items and
health outcomes, you might find that any random thing. People
(47:25):
who eat kelp on a regular basis have a lower
risk of pancreatic cancer, but that doesn't actually show that
it's the kelp that makes the difference. It could be
that people who have a lower risk of that cancer. Also,
for some reason, just happen to eat more kelp, And
the best way to establish the kelp is the cause
would again be to do a randomized controlled trial, which
(47:46):
is the gold standard use for testing new drugs and
so forth, but not always used to examine the health
effects of common food and drink items such as coffee, chocolate, tea,
all these things that you see a million conflicting study
results on tea helps this health effect, and then another
study says on maybe it doesn't. So in the end,
I think it's hard to get very solid results on
(48:09):
these kind of food and drink items. But at least
the existing research today makes it look like broadly tea
is pretty safe to drink as long as you're drinking
it within moderation and not super hot, and may in
fact have some positive health benefits associated with it, but
don't bank on those too much.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Well, these are all great points, Like depending on the study,
you might be it might be a situation where it's
the tea cakes that are causing all of the positive
health effects.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Right, Yeah, it may not be causal about drinking the
tea at all. Maybe it's that people who have lower
risk of whatever are also just for some reason cultural
or otherwise more likely to drink tea. Or it could
be that the act of sitting down and drinking something
warm from a cup. I mean, I don't know what
all they compared it to, what controls they used on
all these different experiments, because there have been a lot
of them. But that's where the research show looks like
(48:56):
it lands today. But I did want to note that
positive health effects of tea could exist and might also
be construed, not in an absolute sense, but in the
sense of comparing tea to alternatives, to other things you
could consume instead of tea.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Yeah, And in this I want to turn to a
quote from the herbal classic that I think we reference
this work in the last episode. It is attributed to
Shinnong again, the divine farmer with the crystal stomach that
is in some of the myths, is attributed as discovering tea,
(49:34):
and the quote resis follows in translation, quote Tea is
better than wine, for it leadeth not to intoxication, neither
does it cause a man to say foolish things and
repent thereof in his sober moments. It is better than water,
for it does not carry disease. Neither does it act
like poison as water does when it contains foul and
(49:54):
rotten matter.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Hey, that's the couple of I would say, quite solid observations.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to agree that
the over indulgence of tea is less of a public
or health or safety issue compared to the consumption of alcohol.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Yeah. And then, as Martin points out in her book,
this last bit is also certainly true. Tea prepared with
boiling water would rid the water of many of the
inherent pathogens. So if you're just looking at the difference
between having a hot cup of tea and drinking or
rain water or something or any kind of water that
(50:33):
might be on hand for pure drinking purposes, the tea
is a healthier choice historically speaking, that seems quite true
as long as people are, of course not consuming that
seventh cup of tea and you know, rapturing themselves to
the Holy Mountain.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Right, Yeah, you don't want to accidentally fly to pung
Lie before you get to work in the morning.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Right. And yet, to your point, just the idea of
your drinking tea, then what are you not drinking? You're
not drinking alcohol. You're not drinking wine, you're not drinking
water that may, given the circumstances, might not be the
purest or the healthiest choice at that time. Yeah, this
is all fascinating.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
I think that's going to do it for part two, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
I think this is all we have time for in
this episode, but we'll come back for a part three.
We're gonna look a little more at the history and
evolution of tea and possibly get into some other tea
cultures as well, and we'll see what else comes up.
In the meantime. We'd love to hear from everyone out there,
because I know we have a lot of tea drinkers
out there, tea drinkers from different parts of the world,
different tastes, different experiences. We'd love to hear everything you
(51:41):
have to say about the matter, So write in let
us know. I'd love to hear from you. A reminder
that core episodes of Just to Blow Your Mind published
on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Monday is listener Mail. Wednesday is
a short form artifact or monster fact, and on Fridays
we set aside most serious concerns to talk about a
weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Huge thanks to our our audio producer, JJ Posway. If
you would like to get in touch with us with
feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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