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Tea is not "a technology". It's a drink.
by jhgb 5y ago
Tea is not "a technology". It's a drink.
- asveikau 5y agoI mean, it's a leaf.
- jholman 5y agoComputers are not "a technology". They're processed rocks. Insofar as tea involves technique, including selection, cultivation, harvest, processing, and preparation, it's a technology. One that I personally dislike.
- jhgb 5y agoThe notion of pouring hot water over plant leaves is not something that had to be "stolen" from China. For example it's been known in Ancient Egypt already.
- edgyquant 5y agoRight but the seeds needed and the growing and processing of the tea leads was definitely stolen from China in a way similar to how China acts today
- jhgb 5y agoThat is a bizarre argument to me. "Stolen"? Plant species spread. Sometimes they're even being spread by animals. Humans have spread numerous plant species across the world. Yet tea plants were "stolen"? Not to mention that even claiming it in the context of Europe is nonsensical to begin with as tea doesn't grow in Europe, where there simply isn't a climate for it. As far as consumption of tea in Europe is concerned, virtually all of it is imports from countries outside of Europe, not something being produced in Europe.
- qwytw 5y ago> the context of Europe is nonsensical to begin with as tea doesn't grow in Europe It does grow just fine in India which was mostly controlled by Europeans at the time. As much as all of this seems bizarre to you it's still a historical fact. The Chinese government (wanting to maintain its global monopoly) banned the export of tea plants. In the 1840's a British botanist Robert Fortune (commissioned by the East India company) travelled to the tea growing provinces of China, disguised himself as Chinese and illegally smuggled several tea plants back to India. After replicating them in greenhouse he introduced them to the Darjeeling region in Northern India. To be fair tea was already grown in India before 'the Great Tea Heist' it was just different kinds of tea (e.g. Assam) and Chinese teas were more popular and much more expensive (largely due to Chinese monopoly on trade, western ships were only allowed to trade at specifically designed trade ports).
- lenkite 5y agoI object to Tea being a Chinese invention. Place of origin is East India.
- jon-codes 5y agoLast I checked, tea doesn’t occur naturally. Creating it requires a technique (technology).
- jhgb 5y agoInfusion may be a technology, but tea is definitely a drink.
- the-smug-one 5y agoSo I recently watched a video on this. Black tea is fermented green tea, Europeans did not know this before getting that knowledge through a spy. Europeans "stole" everything regarding the production of tea, and poached a few Chinese tea masters along with it.
- sgift 5y ago"Poached"? Did they enslave them? Or did they make them a deal and the masters decided they'd rather work for someone else?
- the-smug-one 5y agoThe latter AFAIK, "poaching talent" is a pretty common term so I thought the meaning would be clear :-).
- lightbulbjim 5y agoGood book on this subject: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3081255-for-all-the-tea-in-china https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3081255-for-all-the-tea-...
- edgyquant 5y agoTrue but the British did steal tea from China. It’s actually pretty interesting it’s akin to espionage the way one British guy secretly went around learning how the tea was grown and taking seeds before setting up shop in India to grow it.