Hi, guys, It's Edward. Tea is a great drink it's also my passion here I want to
share my experience with you t lovers it's my first video so I want to start
with how humans encountered this great drink or the tea discovery you ready
let's do this
hmm it's nice this is a raw pu'er from Myanmar (Burma). This has been aged for a couple
of years huh huh ok back to the topic today tea discovery it took thousands of
years for tea to evolve from a wild leaf into the second most popular drink of the
world second only to water a much of the world's art culture religion history has
been greatly influenced by tea. So, who discovered tea who put the first tea
leaf in their mouth or who first infused water with tea leaves like this well I
guess there's no answer to that and people may have different opinions about
the origin of tea, like "Was it from Assam in India or Yunnan Province in China?"
to be honest I don't care that much And culturally, it seems most people
agree with the Chinese fairy tale Shen Nong (神农) the so-called god of
Agriculture was the first human being that discovered tea. He doesn't seem
handsome today but I believe he should be in his era. So when was his time you
know the use of tea started much earlier than we have any historical records and
during the Warring States period in Chinese history between 475 BC and 221
BC there were around five books talking about Shen Nong's story of tea the story
takes place well before any recorded Chinese history and he is said to have
lived between three to two thousand year BC or about four to five thousand
year ago today no wonder the original version is in
Chinese here it comes Shen Nong Chang Bai Cao, Yi Ri Yu Qi Shi Er Du,
De Tu Er Jie Zhi. Here Tu is an old name for tea. this record in English
means Shandong consumed hundreds of herbs and one day he met 72 poisons
when he discovered he was finally cured for those poisons one
interpretation is he tried to save his people's lives by consuming various
herbs to discover their medical benefits while doing so he stumbled upon tea
another interpretation of the story is he was severely poisoned while
experimenting with herbs and later he died next to a tree miraculously a stream
of water passed through the tea leaves fallen from the tree and the tea
infused water flowed into his mouth then he was cured of the poisons whichever
story you believe tea has been used for thousands of years by people and
possibly for more than 5,000 years even today not all the health benefits of tea
are known creating a God gave the detoxification and other health benefits
of tea more acceptance to the public okay that's all for the fairy tale now
let's talk about the fact here is an archeological evidence about tea
discovery that I want to share actually there are many of them in the southwest
of China or Asam state in India even Laos or Myanmar but this one is not
anywhere close but in Zhejiang province of China now let's draw a map of China
like this the island of Taiwan and in China we have a river called Chang Jian
or
Yangtze River and this is the city of Shanghai to the south of Shanghai
there is a province called Zhejiang province is spelled like that ZHE JIANG.
and In Yuyao city of Zhejiang province seven kilometres north of He Mu Du, a well-known
Neolithic site lays possibly the oldest tea cultivation site in the
world the Tian Liu Shan site literally means the mountain of field snails in
the year of 2012 the Zhejiang Institute of archeology took charge of the fifth
excavation at tianluoshan site surrounding the residential area of the
site they unearthed many intrusions which turned out to be cultivated
camelia plants these are some pictures from the tianluoshan site, this is a
container it looks like a teapot, eh this is the excavation of a possible tea
plant root according to some authorities, scientific testing of the plant
intrusions at the site showed they were the earliest cultivated tea tree
remains in China this discovery likely extends Chinese tea history to 6,000
years ago which means the discovery of tea may stretch back even further than
Shen Nong's fairy tale suggests here I want to recommend an academic paper
published by a Japanese researcher forgive me if I pronounce this wrong
professor Shinichi Nakamura from Kanazawa University the
paper is called Archeobotacnical study of neolithic sites in china shed
light on the origin of lacquer and tea use okay that's all what I want to share
about the tea discovery a fairy tale about Shaen Nong the god of Agriculture an
archaeology discovery at Tian Luo Shan site okay that's all for
this video I hope you liked it, please leave a comment now what you like or
don't like about this and feel free to share this with other tea lovers I'll
see you guys next time