Fraternity-Testvériség, 1964 (42. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1964-11-01 / 11. szám
4 FRATERNITY TALES ABOUT TEA All the tea in China isn’t enough to satisfy the world’s tea-drinkers! Americans alone drink 32 billion cups a year. That’s a lot of tea! Tea goes back so far its true beginning is lost in time. Chinese legend has it that in 2737 B. C., Emperor Shen Nung watched some small, dry leaves fluttering into a pot of boiling water that hung in his garden. He smelled it — the smell was good. He sipped it, liked it, called it “ch’a”, and decided from then on the beverage would be part of his daily diet. For years the brewing of tea was unknown outside of China. But when the Far East could be reached by sea, traders from many countries discovered the beverage and entered into fierce competition for it. Soon tea-drinking became the rage all over Europe. In England, tea-drinking became a national pastime, and Dr. Samuel Johnson, famous journalist and critic of the 17th Century, declared himself “a hardened and shameless tea drinker”. Tea became so popular that a thriving smuggling trade developed. Two-thirds of the tea drunk in England at that time was sumggled in to avoid high import taxes. The first tea came to America in about 1650. It was a luxury item in old New Amsterdam, costing $30 to $50 a pound! And no well-born hostess would dream of going to a party without also taking her own china cup and saucer for a spot of the refreshing beverage. But not everyone knew how to brew tea. In Salem, Massachusetts, tea leaves were boiled for a long time until a bitter brew resulted. This was drunk without milk or sugar, then the tea leaves were salted and eaten with butter! Actually, tea comes from a jungle plant belonging to the camellia family. The flower is small and white, looks much like the apple blossom. Bushes are trimmed to a height and width of three to four feet. If they weren’t constantly pruned, the tree plant would grow perhaps 30 feet high! It takes several years for the tree to produce a harvest of young shoots — or “flushes” — from which tea is made. These flushes produce two leaves and a small, unopened bud, which women harvest by hand. Most of the tea consumed in America is grown in India, Ceylon and Indonesia in tea gardens or estates. There are more than 3,000 varieties of tea. And like wines, they take their names from the districts where they are grown — Darjeeling, Assam, Ceylon and Java, for example. The tea we buy is a blend of 20 to 30 different varieties. There are three different types of tea: black, green and oolong. They all come from the same tea bush. It’s what happens in the factory that makes them different. Black tea, the kind we Americans like best, goes through a special oxidation process that turns the leaves black. The familiar word “Pekoe” refers only to the size of the leaf — not to a type or variety.
