Background
Chinese Tea Overview
An Introduction
The origin of the word ‘tea’ is the pronunciation in the Fujian (a province on the coast of China) dialect of the Chinese character ‘cha’ which means tea. The Chinese has been drinking tea since time immemorial and has been exporting tea to the rest of the world for over one thousand years. It was introduced into Europe in the seventeenth century and has become a very popular drink ever since.
According to legend, tea was first discovered and used as a medicinal herb by Yan-Di (Emperor Yan), one of the three ‘emperors’ in ancient China, about 4,600 years ago. Written records have it that cultivation of tea started in China about 3,000 years ago. At that time the Chinese character of ‘cha’ had not been created and instead another Chinese character ‘tu’ was used to represent tea. The character ‘cha’ was first used in the Tang Dynasty when the famous tea connoisseur, Lu Yu, wrote the ‘Tea Treatise’ and changed the character for tea from ‘tu’ to ‘cha’.
Chinese Cusine Overview
One word to describe Chinese cuisine in general is ‘dainty.’ Each region of China boasts its own unique style of cooking and the Chinese themselves can seem obsessed with eating. The four major regional styles are Cantonese, Sichuanese, Northern and Eastern, but each individual region has its own speciality.