The Origin of Tea

Tea is an herb that appeared on earth since ancient times, growing naturally in mountainous areas and especially in the higher mountains, the more ancient tea roots there are, and the colder the places, the better the tea. There are tea roots that can live in the Himalayas at an altitude of over 5000m above sea level, very delicious and rare. However, ancient tea trees are only found in Asia, although in Kenya, a country in East Africa, there are also tea trees, but there are no ancient tea trees like in Asian countries.

A special thing is that in Vietnam, there are ancient tea forests in the Hoang Lien Son range, stretching over 180km in the Northwest provinces. In which, there are places recognized as a Global Geopark by the world such as Dong Van – Ha Giang stone plateau, because there are archaeological sites that prove to have existed for 500 million years and special soil. rich because formerly the seabed. Because of geological fluctuations, it becomes a snow-covered mountain all year round. The tea roots here are very special, extremely rare and the taste of the tea is especially delicious and the micronutrients in it are different from the tea varieties in the low mountains.

Tea is more known to people when it becomes a precious medicine from the legend of Shen Nong, a god who reincarnated as a human, teaching people to farm, pottery and find medicinal herbs from nature. He was born in 3220 BC and died 3080 BC, at that time countries such as China, India, and Vietnam had not yet formed a distinguishing border like today and the whole of Asia was a league of many tribes and Shen Nong. He is considered the ancestor of both the Vietnamese and the Han people later because of his enlightenment and teachings so that people at that time could exist and reproduce together with nature.

So tea has been processed into tea since 5000 years ago, since the time of Shennong and Asian people have developed along with drinking tea from Shennong.

Shen Nong is the god of wet rice civilization with a source of life from gathering, he has tried many plants to identify medicinal plants. When teaching people to eat cooked and drink boiling water, during a trip to the forest to boil water, the leaves of a tree fell in, the water was changing color, the scent rose, and when you drank it, you found a very special taste. After that, you can get better, let the sick person drink to see the disease dissipate. Since then, Shen Nong taught people in ancient times to collect tea, dry it and process it into medicines. Therefore, tea can be called Divine Potion, a medicinal herb found from the God.

Tea goes along with Asian civilization, when science and technology develops, tea is processed more sophisticatedly, from drying, drying, jarring …. storage and preservation has more technology, including natural fermentation technology. (using microorganisms in the tea leaves) has created world famous delicious tea lines.

By the 17th century, when the British invaded India, tea was brought back by Europeans and enjoyed in the European way and developed it into a commercial product with great exchange value and use value. more widely.

We in Vietnam have a special advantage in tea that the world cannot have. That is, we inherit the best of tea from the region of raw materials, processing methods and enjoyment from nature and human civilization. In the history of invasion of our country, from China, Mongolia, France, Japan, the US, they all used the best people, the most sophisticated methods from diplomacy, military to trade, and tea products to accompany their annexation journey and our winning mission. Therefore, in a natural way, how to process tea, how to preserve tea, how to enjoy tea, we can interact with them from a very early age at the highest level, such as kings, generals, clergy, and family. diplomats, cultural houses to soldiers and people. There’s nothing about tea that the world knows that we don’t. In addition, we have an extremely flexible way of drinking tea and the crystallization of world tea civilization and Vietnamese culture to become Vietnamese tea culture.

Tea is a drink that the supreme to the people all use and respect, from the way it is processed, preserved to enjoy. Although sharing a common origin, the development of tea depends on the culture of the people who treat the tea plant. There are thousands of years old tea trees cut down for timber by loggers. I have witnessed with my own eyes the people in the mountains, because of hunger, cut down the old tea tree every year to make… terraced fields in Ha Giang in the 2000s of this 21st century.

I also see boxes of OoLong tea left moldy in the Zen master’s secret room, or precious teapots brewed according to the tea drinking method of working people, or the student canteen when I went to school, but that is not the case. done right in the private homes or offices of high-ranking officials, is considered a noble virtue.

If we understand the origin of tea, we will have appropriate behavior with tea, if we do not understand we will behave very rudely and from making tea to… breaking tea.

“Tea makes the soul refreshing, body heat clear, drinking a bowl of ten thousand sorrows disappear” (Tue Tinh)

“Tea is a good plant in the South, the sentence is like the Qua Lo tree, the leaves are like the leaves of Chi Tu, the flowers are like the white flowers of Tuong vi, the fruit is like the fruit of the Banh Lu tree, the stamens are like the stamens of the clove, the taste is very cold” (Le) Quy Don)

From the primeval forest, people have brought seeds to plant into tea hills closer to the plain, and formed export processing factories in large quantities and brought to the market. When the demand for tea is greater, the cultivation of tea becomes larger, on a larger area than we see in poetry.

“Very beautiful, my country

The palm forest, the tea hill, and the sweet green fields

The sun is shining on the Lo River, singing and singing

Ferry trip to Binh Ca wharf”

(I go to – To Huu)

Natural tea through human thought and labor becomes a product of society, that is not only in our country but all over the world, especially China, India, Japan, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and so on. exporting finished products to all over the world, serving the needs of healing, nutrition, awakening, refreshment, cultural exchange of the world.

In some places, tea as an asset has a high storage value and is brighter than precious materials such as gold, silver, and diamonds. There are wars and conflicts caused by the competition for ownership rights. ownership, investment and trade in tea.

Around the 8th century, a man named Lu Yu of China wrote the book “Tra Kinh” and Lu Dong composed “Tra Ca” to praise and guide the use of tea.

Why is tea called tea, it is suggested that it is also derived from Shen Nong, because he is always looking for herbs to save the people and make medicine for the people, so he has to try a lot of plants, sometimes poisonous. medicine. He discovered that tea has the effect of detoxifying, removing toxins, so he wrote it as a test (tra) so tea is called tea.

When dedicating a chapter in the book to talk about the origin of tea, I want to discuss with you another aspect, not only the historical origin, the year it was born, but why was it born, how was it born? how? What is the mission?

Why does tea have such a wide popularity among so many beverages, in so many different walks of life, in so many different social contexts? Tea goes from the palatial palace to the village piggy bank. Tea is used for the king, the enlightened one to the prisoner, the poor?

So when talking about the origin of tea I do not emphasize the original age, but I mean the spiritual origin of tea, which is deeper and broader than the origin of a plant called is tea. In the world today, according to studies on pine trees in a mountain range in California – USA. “Researcher Schulman decided to name this pine tree Methuselah, after the oldest man in the Bible. The figure of Methuselah only lived to 969 years old, and this pine tree at the time of discovery in 1957 was 4789 years old.

Guinness World Records has recognized this as the oldest tree in the world, still clinging to its original roots where it grew more than 4,800 years ago. To preserve and preserve the oldest tree species, the location of the Methuselah tree remains a secret and is not disclosed to the public. So tea has a long life before the 5000 year mark. The spiritual origin of tea is the soul of the tea drinker. Some people drink tea just to quench their thirst, some people drink tea to stay awake even to wake up, some people drink tea to think, some people drink tea as a kind of elixir and some people drink tea as a way to meditate. Some people drink tea as a habit, some people drink tea as a cultural activity. The common point is that they are searching for the soul to explore another deeper, more mysterious and magical being called the soul. The soul is eternal and immortal, the soul is the achievement built from life itself and it will transform into ideas when we die.

Drinking tea is taking care of the source of the soul, a way to make the soul meaningful and rich by discovering the very depths of oneself. It’s like we dig a well and find an underground geyser that gushes out water. So in my opinion, the origin of tea is when people are aware of protecting their health, using tea as a kind of elixir for protecting health and abundance of the soul. Tea is also a way to bring us closer to the source of Spirituality.

The history of tea is similar to the history of Vietnam, so is there a connection between the origin of tea and the origin of Vietnam?

This is a dilemma that has always bothered me, and I hope in the process of writing this book I will find it. Although at the time of writing these lines at 21:43 on January 13, 2021, on December 1 of the year of the Rat, no clue has been found.

But obviously if our Vietnamese ancestors are Than Nong – Shen Nong’s three-generation grandson is King De Minh who went to the South to meet a fairy and gave birth to Loc Tuc. Loc Tuc became King of Phuong Nam – named Kinh Duong Vuong.

If Shen Nong discovered tea, it may have existed before Shen Nong appeared, but because no one had discovered it before, it can be assumed that this credit belongs to Shen Nong, the ancestor of the Vietnamese people.

If the Europeans migrated to the land of freedom, then the Vietnamese, with a sincere heart, have come to expand to the South, finding the sacred and energetic S-shaped strip of land here. . From 5000 years ago, there was no state form in both Southeast Asia and Asia, but only tribes headed by chiefs, because there was no state organization yet, so there were no borders between countries. .

We Vietnamese people are fortunate to have Shen Nong, find tea as a panacea to help us have health to adapt to primitive life, wild roses and also help people develop intelligence to be able to neutralize. Dangerous challenges lurking from wild animals, even natural disasters. In the process of gathering them to eat poisonous herbs that the body is not strong enough to neutralize, tea also works as an antidote.

It can be said that the origin of tea is the origin of the Vietnamese, who know how to grow wet rice, gather, and live on the protection of mother nature.

Later, linguistic studies showed the relationship between the word “tea” and the word “father” to refer to Shen Nong, the father of the Vietnamese who discovered tea and processed it into tea to make a panacea. , along with many species of plants, many good herbs to raise cubs, creating the Vietnamese race.

Vietnamese Tea Culture – Hà Huy Thanh