Hey #medievaltwitter does anyone have references to scholarship on the question of why medieval Europeans did not import tea? They had access to Chinese products, so why not tea? My search for "tea" on the IMB turned up bupkis.
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Thanks! Pepper was far from the only "spice" imported in bulk from China--all kinds of things like alum and dyestuffs and many, many other eastern products that could also have been heavier or lighter depending. And ceramics were way heavier, but they were imported into Muslim
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world by sea, regardless of weight. But I don't think tea was commonly enjoyed the Muslim world either at this time, right?
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The link to eastern religious and cultural practices might be a clue--like, maybe even Persian and Arab traders who visited or even lived in China didn't have cultural access there to tea or any reason to try it? They imported tea bowls (ok, not many, but the Belitung wreck
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had some ceramics that were ID'd as tea bowls) but not tea?
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This might work! Bowls, ofc, might be originally tea bowls but in importing culture simply be treated as luxury ceramic and used otherwise? Hmm....!
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Fwiw, two 15thC references to envoys from Arabia soliciting tea leaves :) https://archive.org/stream/medievalresearc00bretgoog#page/n318 …pic.twitter.com/ypBwRlkFD5
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And an Arabic reference to tea in China from c.900, showing an early awareness: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=02kFBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA49#v=onepage&q&f=false …pic.twitter.com/e9Foa0d7C2
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Tea's not much use unless it's cheap and later in Europe added to sugar. Alcohol (beer) much more effective. See Alan Macfarlane's book
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I'm no expert on Asian tea ceremonies, and not actually a tea-drinker myself, but didn't the Chinese and Japanese drink tea with salt rather than sugar? For them, it was highly prized as a cultural ritual, and aid to meditation. Anyway, you mean Green Gold? Thanks for the rec!
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Chinese and Japanese don’t drink tea with salt. I only know of Himalayan folk who may drink tea with butter.
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Not today, but the past is not the same - there are recipes from 8th c. China that include many types of herbs and spices. Tea has a history just like other cultural elements.
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Tea didn't regain popularity in China till the Ming Dynasty (says Standage). And although tea began reaching Europe ~1600, coffee was already competing for the "stimulating non-alcoholic beverage" market niche. It was apparently cheaper than tea & common in nearby Muslim lands.
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This is secondary scholarship, but "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" by Tom Standage says that when Marco Polo visited China, during the Mongol ascendancy, tea had lost favor to koumiss (fermented mare's milk). MP apparently didn't develop a taste for tea or bring it home.
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I was just wondering this same thing while reading a hist of tea exports. Makeup, paint, perfume all went so...
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