China News Service Hangzhou, August 28 Title: Why can Chinese tea become a popular drink that has swept the world?
——Interview with Wang Yuefei, Vice President of China International Tea Culture Research Association and Director of Tea Research Institute of Zhejiang University
Author Qian Chenfei
China is the homeland of tea. Tea is deeply integrated into the life of the Chinese and has become an important carrier for inheriting Chinese culture. From the ancient Silk Road, the Tea Horse Ancient Road, the Tea Boat Ancient Road, to today's Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, tea crosses history and crosses national borders, and is deeply loved by people around the world.
As one of the world's three major drinks, why can Chinese tea become a popular drink that has swept the world? How to become an important medium for trade and cultural exchanges between the East and the West? Wang Yuefei, vice president of the China International Tea Culture Research Association and director of the Tea Research Institute of Zhejiang University, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Questions" to analyze the relevant topics.
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: China is the first country in the world to discover and cultivate tea trees and use tea leaves. From "Chai Rice Oil Salt Sauce Vinegar Tea" to "Qinqi Calligraphy and Painting Poetry Wine Tea", why do Chinese people like tea and love tea?
Wang Yuefei: Tea, coffee and cocoa are collectively known as the world's three major beverages. Among them, tea has existed on the earth for about 60 million to 70 million years. The discovery and utilization of tea began in primitive matriarchal clan societies and has a history of 5,000 to 6,000 years. Tea has a long history in China, and the earliest record of tea is that "Shennong tasted hundreds of herbs, encountered seventy-two poisons every day, and got the solution to the tea(tea)".
Chinese ancestors drank tea through four processes: raw medicine, cooked as a dish, cooked and drunk, and brewed and drunk. Tea contains more than 700 ingredients, which are beneficial to people's health and have become a necessity for many Chinese people. Especially in Qinghai, Inner Mongolia and other places, herders have previously lacked fresh fruits and vegetables, drinking tea can supplement vitamins to a certain extent, so it is also rumored that "it is better to have no grain for three days than no tea for one day".
Tea is "chai rice oil salt sauce vinegar tea", but also "Qinqi calligraphy and painting poetry wine tea", tea is sought after by many literati and inkers, which is not only a material need, but also a spiritual need. In the Tang Dynasty, Lu Yu's "Tea Classic" came out and was known as the "Tea Encyclopedia". This comprehensive treatise on the history, source, current situation, production technology, tea drinking techniques, and tea ceremony principles of tea production has become the earliest, most complete and most comprehensive monograph on tea in China and even the world, which has developed tea culture to an unprecedented height and also marked the formation of Chinese tea culture.
With the emergence of the commodity economy, people's living conditions have improved, the people's demand for culture has increased, and Chinese tea culture has gradually accumulated, and the utensils and porcelain that match it are also loved by the people.
Nowadays, tea culture is not only integrated into people's daily lives, but also becomes a link of interpersonal communication, containing the "beauty of civilization" in the East.
Citizens and tourists drink tea at a nearly 40-year-old "traffic teahouse" in Chongqing. Photo by Zhou Yi, a reporter of China News Service
China News Service: What role does Chinese tea play in the global tea industry? What are the peculiarities?
Wang Yuefei: China has the confidence of tea culture, Chinese tea is the world's unique famous tea resources, tea producing areas almost counties have good tea, townships have good tea, villages have good tea, tea has become an important cash crop in China. More than 30 million tea farmers in 1,085 counties live richly on "one leaf", and the tea industry has become a large industry that drives people's livelihood.
Looking at the world, tea is now spread across the five continents of the world, there are 64 countries in the world to grow tea, 30 countries or regions can stably export tea, more than 150 countries or regions import tea all year round, more than 160 countries and regions have tea drinking habits.
As for the role of Chinese tea in the global tea industry, it can be summarized with six words of "Chinese tea, crown the world" - "crown" is mainly reflected in four aspects: tea production, tea garden area, total tea consumption, and total tea export amount.
From the existing data, in 2020, the world's tea output was 6.269 million tons, and China's tea output was 2.986 million tons, ranking first in the world; the world's total tea area was 76.47 million mu, and China's total tea area was 47.475 million mu, also ranking first in the world. China's tea has a huge impact on the world's tea production and consumption, accounting for 47.63% of the world's tea production, consumption accounts for 41.68% of the world's total tea consumption, and exports account for 19.14% of the world's tea exports.
At present, it is the "golden age" of China's tea industry development, nearly half of the world's people (more than 3 billion people) drink tea every day, and the world drinks more than 3 billion cups of tea a day.
Bai villagers in Sangzhi County, Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, pick white tea at the base of the Ginkgo Pagoda base of Sangzhi White Tea in Yunshang Tea Garden. Photo by Yang Huafeng, a reporter of China News Service
China News Service: Why can Chinese tea smoothly go out of the circle and go to the world?
Wang Yuefei: Chinese tea first went to the world in the 5th century AD, mainly through the Silk Road successively introduced to East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia.
The smooth passage of tea leaves lies largely in their rich medicinal value. Tea in China was first used as a medicine, called "tea medicine", according to the "Shennong Materia Medica", "Typhoid Fever", "Materia Medica", "Tea Classic" and other records, it can be known that before the Tang Dynasty, people realized that tea has many effects, not only can make people sleepy, blind, energetic, mentally happy, but also lose weight, increase the sensitivity of the mind, and even not lose to "and manna".
In the 7th century, when Japanese and Korean monks who came to China returned to China, they brought tea trees back to China in the name of "medicinal use" for preventive health care. Zen master Rongxi, the originator of the Japanese tea plant, said in the "Record of Eating Tea Health": "Tea people, the immortal medicine of health care, and the magic of trilling." The valley is born, and so are the gods of the earth. People are full of talent, and their people live long. In the second year of The Japanese Jianbao (1215 AD), Eisai offered February tea, which cured the fever of the Kamakura shogunate's general Gensei Dynasty, and since then, the Japanese tea style has become more popular.
In the age of great navigation from the 15th century to the 17th century, the distance between countries in the world was unprecedentedly narrowed, and the miraculous medicinal effects of tea were further spread, and the Dutch East India Company relied on its navigational advantages to ship green tea from Macau to Java, Indonesia, and then transferred to Europe, opening up the european tea drinking wind.
The United Kingdom is one of the most tea-drinking countries in Europe, driven by the royal family, tea drinking has become a fashion pursued by the nobility and has become popular among all classes in the United Kingdom. They found that tea has a good effect on refreshing, relieving fatigue, relieving alcohol, helping digestion, etc., and drinking it for a long time does not have any side effects. The tea trade between China and England grew from scratch and gradually developed from the 17th century to the early 18th century, and the considerable profits made the tea trade more active.
Visitors enjoy tea tasting at the 2020 China (Guangzhou) International Tea Industry Expo and the 21st Guangzhou International Tea Culture Festival. China News Service reporter Chen Chuhong photographed
As the most developed country in the world at that time, britain led the wave of Europe. Since the end of the 17th century, Chinese tea has gradually swept the world. At that time, China's tea exports had surpassed porcelain and silk, accounting for about 90% of the country's exports.
Research on tea and health culminated again in the 1980s. Under the call to "get back to nature," many researchers began to seek alternatives to synthetic drugs from plants.
Japanese scientist Fujiki M first reported in 1987 that tea polyphenols have the effect of inhibiting the activity of human cancer cells, which has attracted worldwide attention. In 2002, Time magazine recommended the top ten health foods, including green tea.
Related research has driven the growth of global tea consumption, and also allowed Chinese tea to cross history, cross national borders, and win the love of the world.
China News Service reporter: Behind the "leaf", what are the similarities and differences between the tea drinking habits of the East and the West? What are the figures of the East and the West?
Wang Yuefei: China is known as the motherland of tea and the birthplace of tea culture. The higher the degree of fusion of Eastern and Western cultures, the more roles Chinese tea is given. From the luxury drink that became a high society when it first went to sea, to the popularization of "afternoon tea" culture in Western society, and then to the integration with milk and alcohol today, the collision of cultures has made Chinese tea famous overseas.
There are many differences between the East and the West in terms of tea drinking. Chinese tea has green tea, yellow tea, black tea, white tea, green tea, black tea six major types of tea, Chinese tea drinking pay attention to "taste", requiring color and fragrance are complete, but also pay attention to cultural connotation, utensils and artistic conception. The Western tea drinking form is relatively simple, pay attention to efficiency and convenience, and prefer tea bags and crushed tea.
The audience was attracted by the March Peach Blossom Cup of the Qing Kangxi Imperial System "Twelve Flower God Cup". Photo by China News Service reporter Zhang Wei
When tea is circulated as a commodity, it also promotes the fusion of diverse cultures. Chinese tea culture has become the cradle of tea culture in various countries, and has promoted the formation of tea culture in Britain, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Morocco and other countries.
Taking China and Japan as an example, the two countries have had frequent exchanges in history, and Chinese tea culture has formed a unique tea ceremony system, genre and etiquette in Japan. The Tang Dynasty, song dynasty and late Ming Dynasty were important historical periods for the spread of Chinese tea culture to Japan. For example, during the Southern Song Dynasty, "tea ordering" was introduced to Japan, forming a "matcha tea ceremony". At that time, the literati of the Southern Song Dynasty crushed the tea cake, injected water to adjust the paste, and then injected boiling water while quickly beating the tea soup with a tea raft to form a fine foam. With the increasing frequency of foreign exchanges in the Southern Song Dynasty, "tea ordering" was introduced to Japan, where it was preserved, inherited and carried forward. The "Matcha Ceremony" has now become the national essence of Japan, and it is known as the best in Japan as a state guest ceremony.
Tea and the world, shared in taste. The United Nations announced that May 21 of each year as "International Tea Day" is a good trend, which can promote the sustainable and healthy development of the global tea industry, deepen the integration and mutual learning of tea culture, let more people know tea, love tea, taste tea rhyme, and share a better life.
Tea originated in China and flourished in the world. The vastness, abundance and tolerance of tea have made it a way of communicating with the world since ancient times. In contemporary times, using "tea" as a bridge to promote exchanges and mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations is still of great significance. (End)
Respondent Profiles:
Wang Yuefei, vice president of the China International Tea Culture Research Association and director of the Tea Research Institute of Zhejiang University. China News Service issued a photo provided by the interviewee
Wang Yuefei, Doctor of Tea Science, Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, National First-class Tea Appraiser, Member of the Discipline Review Group of the State Council, Leader of tea Science discipline of Zhejiang University, Director of Tea Research Institute of Zhejiang University, Dean of Meitan Tea Research Institute of Zhejiang University, Vice President of China International Tea Culture Research Association, Chairman of Zhejiang Tea Society.