Today, the beverage of tea is consumed, either as a hot or a cold beverage, by approximately half of the world’s population. As a beverage tea is second in popularity only to water. While tea is cultivated in forty countries around the world, most of the world’s tea crop is consumed in tea-producing countries. In most of the countries in which it is cultivated tea is a significant economic force. For example, in India, the leading tea producing country, tea accounts for 1 per cent of exports. In terms of the number of cups of beverage prepared the annual world tea production of 2.8 billion kilograms for 1.4 trillion cups of tea exceeds the annual world coffee production of 6 billion kilograms for 0.6 trillion cups of coffee. The consumer industry surrounding the consumption of tea in individual countries is also substantial. In Canada, the Tea Council of Canada reports that Canadians drink over 7 billion cups of tea each year. The tea industry consists of a layering of producers, dealers or brokers, distributors and retailers. This section discusses the role of these various players and identifies their connection to tourism. Tea is now grown mainly in China, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia, Japan, Africa, South America and the former Russian states. Tea requires a climate suitable for its growth and production. Tea may be grown in small tea gardens or in larger tea plantations and processed in small production units or larger factories. Shapira indicates that, ‘tea is born on the bush but must be made in the factory’. The factory must thus transform the tea leaf picked in the field through processing into the raw material for consumption. This is done by inducing chemical and physical changes in the leaf so the tea is manufactured resulting in green, oolong or black tea. As mentioned previously, green tea is not fermented, oolong tea is partially fermented and black tea is fully fermented. Green tea is steamed, rolled and fired (dried) in the manufacturing process. The steps in the processing of oolong tea are; a slight withering, fermentation, firing, rolling, briefly fermented again, rolled again and re-fired. The steps in the processing of black tea are; withering, rolling, roll breaking, fermentation and firing. The finished leaf is the material necessary for tea blending. There are several interesting by-products of the teamanufacturing process, some of which have a historical connection with travel and trade. Brick tea, made in China, was historically used by the Chinese as a form of currency in trading with Tibet and Mongolia. Tea is compressed into flat bricks. To brew tea a small amount of tea is shaved from the tea brick, pulverized and combined with boiling water. Tea bricks are still made in China, in one uniform design, manufactured from tea dust hydraulically pressed into 1-kilogram bricks scored on the back. Cake tea, made in China from bitter leaves steamed into 8-inch circles, is believed to be the oldest form of tea manufacture as mentioned by Lu Yu in AD 780. Tablet tea is pill sized wafers of fine-quality tea, ground and formed into small tablets under pressure. Shapria indicates that these tablets are popular with backpackers and travellers.
The Story of Tea the Black Magic of Asia
