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    TEA GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS: Essential Guide to Grow, Blend and Brew Your Own Tea at Home
    TEA GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS: Essential Guide to Grow, Blend and Brew Your Own Tea at Home
    TEA GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS: Essential Guide to Grow, Blend and Brew Your Own Tea at Home
    Ebook205 pages1 hour

    TEA GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS: Essential Guide to Grow, Blend and Brew Your Own Tea at Home

    By Edward Lewis

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    About this ebook

    Due to its numerous benefits, tea drinking has an extensive history and cultural background. Ever since it became a daily habit in the 3rd century CE, tea consumption led to the spread of tea gardening. Historical evidence shows that the plant used for tea was grown for medicinal purposes long before tea cultivation laid the foundation for use i

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEdward Lewis
    Release dateAug 2, 2023
    ISBN9781088233252
    TEA GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS: Essential Guide to Grow, Blend and Brew Your Own Tea at Home
    Author

    Edward Lewis

    Edward Lewis, propelled by the extraordinary success of Essence magazine, has become one of the most successful and respected magazine publishers in the country. In 1969, he cofounded Essence and later founded Latina magazine. Mr. Lewis was honored with the Henry Johnson Fisher Lifetime Achievement Award, the Time, Inc. Henry Luce Award, and was a 2014 inductee into the Advertising Hall of Fame by the American Advertising Federation. He is the former chairman of the Magazine Publishers of America and currently serves as Senior Advisor for Solera Capital, a New York–based private equity firm.

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      Book preview

      TEA GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS - Edward Lewis

      Introduction

      Due to its numerous benefits, tea drinking has an extensive history and cultural background. Ever since it became a daily habit in the 3rd century CE, tea consumption led to the spread of tea gardening. Historical evidence shows that the plant used for tea was grown for medicinal purposes long before tea cultivation laid the foundation for use in modern medicine. The traditional methods of preparing healing drinks from these plants have survived largely unaltered - and for a good reason. As you’ll learn from this guidebook, cultivating herbs for tea is one of the most straightforward ways to acquire some good gardening skills.

      However, before you begin planting your garden, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the basics of tea farming. This book has a chapter dedicated to all the tools you need for planting, growing, harvesting, and preparing tea - and another one that enlists the herbs you can grow in your tea garden. A massive advantage of tea gardening is that you can cultivate the necessary herbs anywhere - from rooftops to gardens to balconies and windows. There are plenty of tips on creating specific growing conditions needed in each location, depending on your agro-climatic conditions.

      Next, you’ll learn the fundamentals of plant care, which, contrary to popular belief, involves much more than simply ensuring adequate watering and soil conditions. Pest and disease are well-known challenges in all gardens, and this book will teach you how to avoid or resolve these issues in just a few simple steps. You’ll be surprised how much tea can grow at home if you take care of your plants!

      Once your herbs have grown, you can refer to the simple harvesting instructions provided in this book for proper preservation. Learning the most appropriate planting and harvesting methods is crucial for successful tea farming. However, securing suitable storage conditions is just as vital for making the most out of your tea garden. By following the beginner-friendly tips from this book, you’ll be able to stock up on plenty of organic herbal blends.

      You’ll be introduced to the most popular tea brewing methods - all of which affect the flavor and medicinal benefits of the herbs. The relevant chapter will also set out the advantages of using a particular brewing method for each plant part. Nothing tastes better than tea made from freshly harvested tea roots, leaves, flowers, fruits, and vegetables. By preparing your own blends for common conditions like anxiety and headaches, you can save plenty of money on other treatments. These blends are a natural way to soothe the nervous system, which is often enough to relieve anxiety and pain. Keep reading to learn how to cultivate the most efficient and fruitful tea garden for your tea needs.

      Chapter 1

      Basics of Tea Gardening

      This first chapter is dedicated to the most ancient forms of gardening in the history of mankind. It sets out the origins of this unique art, starting with the historical and cultural background of tea brewing and cultivation. Reading it, you’ll learn how tea gardening has shaped medicine and people’s everyday life throughout its evolution. You’ll also be given a comprehensive inventory of the equipment you’ll need -along with a list of the types of tea plants that are ideal for you to establish a thriving tea garden.

      The Historical Background of Tea

      The roots of tea cultivation can be traced back to ancient cultures. For example, the Mesopotamians used medicinal herbs for different purposes and forms, including infusion (another name for teas). However, the earliest records of tea farming originate from the 3rd century CE in China. According to Chinese mythology, tea drinking as a leisurely practice was invented by Emperor Shen Nung. As he was boiling water on a windy day, a couple of tea leaves flew into the water. Curios, the emperor, decided to try what flavor the brew had and was surprised by its pleasant taste. Not only that, but he also detected that the liquid warmed up his body and invigorated his senses. After naming the ch’a (which translates to to check in Chinese), the emperor was determined to learn more about how to brew drinks like this. He also encouraged others to do the same. The ch’a is a written Chinese character traditionally characterized by wooden branches, grass, and a figure of a man standing between the two. This character embodies the precarious balance tea holds between the people drinking it and nature.

      Initially, people only focused on the medicinal benefits of tea, and only green tea was used. However, after its popularity began to soar, suddenly, everyone was drinking it for enjoyment -and they were encouraged to do so. As it became a daily habit, tea plantation owners and traders saw great business opportunities to create an industry. They developed more exclusive packets and sold them to the wealthiest members of the Empire. The hefty price tag was justified by the plants being cultivated by chaste young women who couldn’t taint the medicinal effect of the herbs. The women were also forbidden to eat or work with spices such as garlic to avoid polluting the precious tea leaves.

      In the mid-17th century, the foreign tea trade drove the Chinese to investigate preservation procedures to store tea for longer, making it easier to transport. This was when they discovered the oxidation and fermentation processes. Besides preserving the tea for longer, this process also leads to zestier flavors - which became known as black tea. This new black tea kept its aroma much longer, which made it excellent for export and shipping. Since then, a wide variety of additional tea-making processes have been discovered, and tea has remained an integral part of Chinese culture until this day.

      After the Chinese introduced tea to the neighboring Tibetan Empire in the 9th century, the Tibetans have also become intrigued by it. However, the unfavorable agro-climate conditions in their country made it impossible to cultivate tea plants, and the Tibetans resorted to importing them from China. Soon after, tea drinking in Tibet became a tradition of great proportions. Even nowadays, Tibetans drink up to a staggering 40 cups of tea per day per person. However, tea also has other purposes in this country. Dry tea leaves were used as a currency - especially among the wealthy who paid their servants and laborers with tea leaves. Since it was considered a luxury at the time, the workers were more than happy to accept it in lieu of payment. Traditionally, tea in Tibet is made by boiling loose leaves for 30 minutes before straining and enriching them with yak butter and salt. This enables those living at high altitudes to replace the salt and fat they’d lose during the day due to the harsh weather conditions.

      At the turn of the 9th century, tea was also introduced to Japan by a Buddhist monk named Dengyo Daishi. While studying in China, Daishi observed the budding tea habit and the benefits of this brew. Inspired by this knowledge, he decided to take a few tea seeds to his home country. From then on, Japan’s tea-consuming habit took root in monasteries, where tea was increasingly popular due to its spiritually enlightening effects. Japanese monks used tea as an energizing brew, which allowed them to stay focused during prolonged meditation exercises. By the beginning of the 14th century, the rest of Japanese society also took to tea brewing, although the practice was still primarily associated with spiritual conventions. A century later, the sacred Japanese tea ceremony was conceived to celebrate the art of brewing and drinking tea. It was developed by Zen Buddhists, who used this act to honor the Japanese spiritual philosophy. People built extra rooms for brewing tea to maintain this new tradition. Young maidens could only entertain the prospect of marriage if they mastered the art of the traditional tea ceremony. The Japanese traditionally use Matcha tea (a form of green tea) combined with only a tiny amount of water. As a result, their tea has a potent, earthy flavor. The same robust flavor profile is also present in the fermented and steeped teas that have later become popular in Japan. The Japanese also revolutionized tea production by switching to specialized machines as soon as technology made this possible.

      By the 17th century, the international tea trade was so developed that this plant also made its way to Russia and Europe. In the beginning, tea was carried to Russia by a camel caravan (a journey that took over a year to complete). At the beginning of the 20th century, when the Trans-Siberian Railway opened, tea transport became much easier and widespread. Tea was introduced to Europe by Dutch and Portuguese merchants. On the European continent, tea was first known as a brew with spiritually lifting, invigorating, and medicinal properties - just like in every other territory where it was introduced.

      However, when a Portuguese princess married King Charles II of England, she introduced the tea-drinking custom to her high-society friends and England. Due to this and the high import prices, tea drinking was a status symbol across Europe. Since only the wealthiest members of society could afford it, they made sure to use tea drinking to distinguish themselves. They taught appropriate tea-drinking methods to aristocratic young people (especially ladies) and commissioned paintings of themselves drinking tea.

      This British society created traditions such as the Afternoon Tea, a novelty custom driven by the need to

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