1. Segment 1B Traditional and enduring attributes of tea Tea as commodity and spiritual drink When did tea drinking begin? Tealeaf crafting
History of the culture of Tea in china, japan, and Korea
Study Group — society for Asian art
November 3, 2018

2. Three enduring facets of tea
Health
Including nutritional benefits for Inner Asian peoples
Taste (with health benefits)
Stimulant (with health benefits)
"Bringing together"
Contests, hospitality, tea ceremony as grand central station for the arts and social bridge
Exotic

3. Two primary ways tea is embraced by East Asian culture
Commodity
including Silk Road
Companion to Buddhism

4. When did the practice of drinking tea begin?
Linguistic challenges
Part of the problem with identifying early mention of "tea" in Chinese literature is the debate over what character(s) might have been used to designate the plant.

5. When did the practice of drinking tea begin?
Timeline (dubious claims)
Zhou dynasty (11th c. BCE): Some Chinese scholarship asserts, somewhat dubiously: 1) tea used as medicine for by commoners and emperors alike 2) Sichuan people paid tribute tea to Wu emperor.
Zhou dynasty (3rd c. BCE): Dictionary entry in the Erya (爾雅): 檟，苦荼。“Jia is a bitter vegetable”. We cannot say with certainty that this refers to tea. And we cannot date with certainty the Erya either.
Han dynasty (2nd c. BCE): Mawangdui tombs (Hunan). Dubious that objects found are for tea.
subvert the tea passage.

6. When did the practice of drinking tea begin?
Timeline (more plausible claim)
Han dynasty (59 BCE): Tong yue (Contract for a Youth). 59 BCE. A humorous, literary piece that lists the kitchen duties of the servant, including "boil tea" (but using an ideography that is somewhat ambiguous, depending on the version consulted.

7. When did the practice of drinking tea begin?
Timeline (scientifically credible claim)
Phytoliths and biomolecular components extracted from ancient plant remains from Chang’an (Xi’an, the city where the Silk Road begins) and Ngari (Ali) in western Tibet, China, show that the tea was grown 2100 years ago to cater for the drinking habits of the Western Han Dynasty (207BCE-9CE), and then carried toward central Asia by ca. 200CE, several hundred years earlier than previously recorded. The earliest physical evidence of tea from both the Chang’an and Ngari regions suggests that a branch of the Silk Road across the Tibetan Plateau, was established by the second to third century CE.
Houyuan Lu et al., “Earliest Tea as Evidence for One Branch of the Silk Road across the Tibetan Plateau,” Scientific Reports 6 (January 7, 2016): 18955,

8. When did the practice of drinking tea begin?
Timeline (summary)
The first tea manual was written in the 8th century (Tang dynasty) by Lu Yu, who is considered the "founding father of tea." This is usually taken as the official start of tea being wide-spread in Chinese Han culture. (Yunnan ethnic practices surely predate this.)
However, given the previous slide, if tea was important enough to be traded across hundreds of miles, and included in burial tombs, it is likely already a prized drink (in some areas) before Lu Yu's time.
Let's say a good start time, for now, is 1st Century BCE.

9. Crafting
Tea leaves (very early)
Tea bricks and balls (up through Tang dynasty)
Powdered tea (Song dynasty and Kamakura era)
Loose leaf tea and flowered tea (Ming dynasty)

10. Crafting

11. Crafting
Tea bricks prepared in the method described by Lu Yu (ca. 800)

12. Crafting <VIDEO REMOVED>
400-Year-Old Green Tea Grinder, 2010,

13. When did the practice of drinking tea begin?
Houyuan Lu et al., “Earliest Tea as Evidence for One Branch of the Silk Road across the Tibetan Plateau,” Scientific Reports 6 (January 7, 2016): 18955,

14. Crafting

15. Crafting