If we could travel back in time, we might be rather surprised at what we were offered as “a good bowl of tea.” The process of making tea in China first evolved from simmering fresh leaves in water, as seems to have been done in earliest times, to simmering processed tea leaves in cake or loose form (roughly Han dynasty through Tang times). During the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE), dried tea leaves pressed into moulds to form cakes were roasted and ground before being simmered in water, sometimes along with other ingredients such as citrus peel and ginger. The result would be a milky looking liquid with a foamy head that was highly prized by connoisseurs. In Song dynasty (960-1279 CE) times, cake tea was ground to a fine powder to which a thin stream of very hot boiled water was added and the mixture then whisked to a froth. It is only from the fourteenth century (Ming dynasty) onwards that loose tea was steeped in very hot water in a way that is familiar to us today. These are just methods of making tea as a recreational beverage—it was used medicinally in soups and congee as well. A bowl of tea, then, was by no means a stable thing. It looked, smelled, and tasted quite different depending on when and where it was made.

In this talk with First Saturday PDX, Dr Benn will explore what we can know about different methods of making tea in premodern China. We’ll look at famous works of tea literature, read some poems, and look at both rare and everyday examples of teaware.