T.

Scarlet Jory Religions of the Silk Road Fall 2017

Tea Culture along the Silk Road

Introduction

Chinese Tea Culture permeates the Silk Road’s social activities from Buddhist Temples

to common homes. During Tang Dynasty China, we see a shift in social practices from the

drinking of alcohol to the drinking of tea. Tea becomes common into the Ming Dynasty and

through to the present day all over the world.

Tea is but one of the many commodities that traveled along the Silk Road out of China as

a luxury item, a means of Chinese cultural exchange, or for Buddhist temples and Buddhist

practitioners. It traveled westward into Persia where it replaced coffee, northward as far as

Mongolia where it replaced fermented milk beverages, southwest into Tibet and into India, and

eventually southward to the coast (a trade route called the Chamadao/Chamagudao or Tea Horse

Road). It even traveled eastward into Japan. Eventually, through the sea routes (via the East India

Trading Company), it made its way to London and the world at large. Tea has been known for its

medicinal qualities and its aid with alertness and meditation, developing into what has been

sometimes called the Tea Culture. Much of the trade for tea was tightly managed and taxed by

China’s Tea Tax Bureau, yet Buddhism helped smooth the way for this trade as tea was

important in Buddhist practices and within temples.

There are claims of tea along the Silk Road as early as the Han Dynasty (some texts state

even earlier), though tea and Chinese Buddhism saw their Golden Age during the Tang Dynasty

into the Ming Dynasty with tea houses. I hope to trace the travel and connections of tea tied to

the exchange of Buddhism and Chinese culture along the Silk Road. For starters, I will address

the concerns and challenges of the study of Food Culture, especially that of tea and beverages

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T. Scarlet Jory Religions of the Silk Road Fall 2017

outside China and Japan. I will highlight contemporary Tea Culture; whose practices trace back

to Chinese Tea Culture. Because of this, we know tea and Tea Culture traveled the various Silk

Road trade routes. This necessitates a look at the roots of tea and Tea Culture where there are

two clear narratives. However, Tea Culture was cemented through the medicinal understandings

determined in Taoist China leading into the use in Buddhist temples as regular monastic practice.

These topics will also be looked at briefly. I will then do a short exploration of the Buddhism

along the Silk Road and of the tea trade. It is at this point that I will discuss my theory of how

Tea Culture traveled the Silk Road and manifested in not just temples, but trade centers, homes

(especially of administrators and officials), tea houses, and among the common peoples. Tea

Culture then transforms a little depending on the culture it encounters and how to it blended into

that culture: Mongol, Russia, Persia, India, Tibet, England, Japan. Finally, I hope to return to my

thesis having proven that Chinese Tea Culture permeated the Silk Road’s social activities.

Study of Food Culture

My methodology is largely text based as I lean on accounts of trade and culture along the

Silk Road through books and journal articles. Some accounts note tea leaves having been

identified in tombs or temples, and they will join my resources. I will draw further information

from books on food culture; as well texts outlining Chinese Buddhist temple practices (the use of

the Chinese Tea Ceremony). This follows a somewhat interdisciplinary approach as my sources

are anthropological, archaeological, geographical, folkloric, socio-cultural, economic, political,

and religious. This paper’s focus is Tea Culture whereby “the term ‘culture’ refers to the set of

values, knowledge, language, rituals, habits, lifestyles, attitudes, beliefs, folklore, rules and

customs that identify a particular group of people at a specific point in time.” (Stajcic 6)

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T. Scarlet Jory Religions of the Silk Road Fall 2017

In this early 21st century, the study of Food Culture is a relatively new field for

anthropology and the study of religion. Food Culture studies will be the theoretical framework

on which I base this research. Let me start with a definition of Food Culture.

“Food culture refers to the practices, attitudes, and beliefs as well as the
networks and institutions surrounding the production, distribution, and
consumption of food. It encompasses the concepts of foodways, cuisine, and food
system and includes the fundamental understandings a group has about food,
historical and current conditions shaping that group’s relationship to food, and the
ways in which the group uses food to express identity, community, values, status,
power, artistry and creativity. It also includes a groups’ definitions of what items
can be food, what is tasty, healthy, and socially appropriate for specific subgroups
or individuals and when, how, why, and with whom those items can or should be
consumed.” (Long)
Food, and by extension beverages, are not just a form of sustenance. They are thick with

meaning, to use a concept from Clifford Geertz. Food, and thus beverages too, are also “a

symbol, a product, a ritual object, an identity badge, an object of guilt [or even pleasure], a

political tool, even a kind of money.” (Koc, Sumner and Winson xi) This is so for Chinese tea

along the Silk Road. I look to use this framework as a model to look at the web of relations and

human interactions surrounding the culture of tea as it is used and as it travels the Silk Road.

Mary Douglas examines the field of Food Studies or Food Culture in the early stages of

the field and the challenges encountered in the face of academics during the mid through late 20 th

century, the methodological problems as she called them in “Food as a system of

communication” in her book In the Active Voice. She argues the value of food as a means to

express, communicate and transmit culture, whereas the study of food has till very recently been

largely based on nutrition, science, and agriculture, not as a means of understanding or

communicating culture.

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T. Scarlet Jory Religions of the Silk Road Fall 2017

The study of food and food cultures is unfortunately neglected along the Silk Road save

for a few select and recent studies. Even those incidents are limited in that they are mostly

looking at some other aspect of cultural studies and food plays a small part in their larger study.

This is especially so when looking at beverages which are as under-represented as the study of

women along the Silk Road. This is the greatest challenge in my particular field of studying tea

in this part of the world. This has led to a dearth of scholarly work in the study of tea along the

Silk Road. It has in turn led me to believe that the lack of overt evidence of Tea Culture along

the Silk Road (and studies of it) imply that tea was merely traded in relay, or that Chinese Tea

Culture is so ingrained and ‘common’ as to not have been recorded or be of interest to scholars.

However, someone has to be the first to look at this and consider the implications of tea and

culture along the Silk Road before the East India Trading Company takes over the tea trade in

the 18th century.

Tea Culture Today

When considering Tea Culture on the Silk Road, it helps to start with what the evidence

of it today. Where do we see tea and how is it used in various places along the Silk Road? Tea is

a common beverage throughout China and its cities that border the Silk Road trade routes. It has

been adopted as a common beverage in Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, India, Persia, Japan, Western

Europe, and North America. Most studies of Tea consider its trade, economic value, social

implications post 18th century with the East India Trading Company. How did it get to these

places and when precisely? How did it change drinking habits and why?

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T. Scarlet Jory Religions of the Silk Road Fall 2017

In most of these contemporary locations in the world, tea is drunk in a variety of ways

from simply steeped and sipped plain, to the addition of milk and or some form of sweetener.

There are so many flavors and varieties as to be impossibly to count them. In all the places in the

world, we find teahouses. The teahouse is a business in the restaurant field that serves as a place

to drink tea, socialize, exchange news/gossip/culture/etc. The earliest teahouses manifest first in

China during the Song Dynasty and spread along the Silk Road through the Ming Dynasty. If

you are visiting/touring/researching/doing business anywhere in the east of Europe through to the

Far East, “you cannot go anywhere without being invited in for tea.”1

Yet, in some places such as Mongol and Tibet and Persia, we see a blending of the native

drinking habits with those of tea. In Mongolia and Tibet, the common drink before the arrival of

tea was a form of fermented milk (cow, goat, sheep, mare) or boiled butter with other additions.

With the introduction of tea, Mongolia ended with süütei tsai (milk tea)2 where tea is made with

boiled and salted water. Milk is then added, and the milk tea is reboiled. This is served as a

beverage or used to cook other things in (like millet or like bansh, a form of dumpling stuffed

with meats and vegetables). (Mongolian Cooking Recipes) Mongol exclusively imports tea as its

climate is not conducive to the growing of tea. Tibet is known for butter tea, which is a strong

black tea mixed with salt and yak butter. It is called po cha and must be drunk hot, so the butter

does not congeal. (YoWangdu) Some areas of Tibet grow their own tea now, though much is

traded with other southern Chinese provinces. Both of these kinds of tea are a rather acquired

taste for the average Westerner because of the salty rather than sweet flavor to the tea.

1
This quote was stated by Professor Richard Foltz in the first class of Religions of the Silk Road, Concordia
University, September 2017; however, he is not the only person to claim this. Other professors (Marc Desjardins)
and many other people have also proclaimed this to be simple fact.
2
Süütei tsai is Mongolian for Milk Tea. The word for tea is sometimes tsai or shey.

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T. Scarlet Jory Religions of the Silk Road Fall 2017

Persian, or Iranian, tea is called chai (pronounced cha-ee and not to be confused with

India’s chai tea). This black tea is steeped for a very long time in just water. Sometimes rose

petals or jasmine flowers are added. (Mirrazavi) Originally coffee was the beverage of choice till

tea was introduce in the 19th century. Persia grows much of its own tea, hosting many plantations

and exports it as well. (Davey)

India’s tea history is much more complicated. Today, India drinks and exports many

kinds of tea: Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling, Chai, etc. Most teas in India are some form of black tea.

The types are named for the locations from where they are grown. Chai however is a blend of

black tea and a variety of spices: ginger, cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, fennel, and clove.

Despite the complicated history of the origin of tea, most of the recorded history of tea for India

dates to late 18th century when cultivation of tea began and grew from there into being the largest

competitor for tea trade in the world today. (Martin)

In Japan, green tea and matcha (powdered green tea) are the beverages of choice for most

people and within most temples. It has a very well documented history from the moment it first

arrived (early 8th century), failed (12th century), arrived again (13th century) in Japan, and how it

changed with the Buddhist practices into what is common tea drinking and what today is known

as the Japanese Tea ceremony. (Jory)

In England, tea is usually drunk plain or with milk and a form of sweetener, sometimes

with lemon and honey. Tea was traded to the East India Trading Company and traveled by sea to

British Europe before it went on to the rest of the Western World, starting as early as the 18 th

century. (Griffiths) Although, some records show tea in Europe via Dutch traders as early as the

16th century. (Standage 185) Today, all forms of tea are appreciated by the cultural mosaic of the

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T. Scarlet Jory Religions of the Silk Road Fall 2017

Western World, from white to green to oolong to red to black.3 Though, mostly the teas of the

west are appreciated as they are in England or East Asia. Rarely do Westerners drink tea as it is

drunk in Mongolia or Tibet.

The how and when tea arrived in these places is easy to trace when looking at trade

agreements and shipments of tea. Most tea was traded out of China direct to Russia, Mongolia,

Tibet, Japan, and Europe. It traveled to North America via European trade. It is when we look at

India’s tea history that we learn of how complicated it is to determine the origins of tea. Both

China and India have differing or conflicting narratives for the origin of tea. These will be

considered shortly. What we know so far is that all around and along the Silk Road trade routes,

people drink tea. How they came to learn of the drinking of tea and its methods of preparation

have little to no recoded history or study. However, because they exist, we can infer that Tea

Culture traveled along with the tea on the Silk Road.

Conflicting Narratives of the Origin and History of Tea

The origins of tea are clouded in ambiguity with centuries of no reference between

mentions. Even those mentions of early origins are cloudy. First, to be clear, tea is the camellia

sinensis plant for the purposes of this paper. The two most dominant narratives come from China

and from possibly India, though that too is unclear for all the references to the Indian origins are

mentioned only in Chinese and Japanese texts.

3
There are several grades of tea. Black tea has been roasted and fermented the most. This lessens for red tea. It is
even less so for Oolong. Green teas are usually mature leaves that are dried and/or roasted. White teas tend to be the
young leaves that are carefully dried only. Black teas contain the most tannins, while white teas are the highest in
anti-oxidants. All teas contain caffeine in varying degrees. Today, we have even developed a process to prepare the
tea leaves so as to have decaffeinated tea.

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The earliest notations of tea in China stem from a legend with the god of medicine, Yan

Di, also considered the early emperor Shen Nung from before 2700 BCE. Shen Nung is also

sometimes referred to as the God of Agriculture. It is said that he discovered the tea plant and the

brewing of tea and taught it to the Chinese. It promoted wakefulness and alertness and joined the

annals of medicines. (Wang 10) This medicinal treatise, known as the Pen ts’ao, however, is

dated at the earliest to be in the later or Neo-Han Dynasty (25BCE-221CE) and makes no

mention of tea. Apparently, the notations of tea were added later during the 7th century CE.

(Standage 177)

There is evidence that tea was cultivated and used in China’s very early history, for its

medicinal qualities of invigoration and topical healing, as well as an addition to foodstuffs before

it was ever considered a beverage. The earliest reference to tea as a medicinal and religious

beverage is found in a 1st century BCE contract for a slave named Bian Liao bought by Wang

Bao that included in the lengthy details of the slave’s duties and tasks: the purchasing of tea (and

from where), the boiling and serving of tea, and the maintenance of the tea utensils. (Mair and

Hoh 30) There are little other mentions of tea until the time of Confucius and then again in the

Han Dynasty.

In early writings, such as the Book of Songs, tea is first called t’u before it later gets its

own character of ch’a. For example, the Tea Hills of Hunan Province were called the T’u Ling

until the Han Dynasty and after were known as the Ch’a Ling. (Yu and Carpenter 12) “By the

period of the Three Kingdoms (221-277) tea had replaced wine at banquets, as people preferred

the refreshing properties of tea to the intoxicating effects of wine.” (Lam 16) It was served like a

jade drink or liquid jade and seemed, according to Taoism, to contribute to immortality.

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(Anderson 15-16) At this time, tea enters poetry and literature in China as a metaphor with either

Taoist or Confucianist symbology.

Confucius is said to have added to the drinking of tea details of social etiquette. Offered

by kings and emperors as gifts, drunk for health and longevity, its properties of calming and

invigoration were picked up by the monks of Buddhist temples to help with late night

meditations. (Martin) Mair and Hoh discuss the literature and practices throughout the 1st through

6th centuries CE (Han dynasty through to the start of the Tang Dynasty), echoing these literary

references and the drinking of tea in the courts. The language found in these songs and stories

show up in later texts about tea.

It has been assumed in most pre-21st century research that at this time, tea traveled only

within the borders of China (northward from the southern provinces and into Tibet) and not

much beyond; however, a recent archaeological discovery proves otherwise. In 2005, a cave was

found in the northern mountain district of Tibet. It is believed to be a tomb from the Han

Dynasty era along a branch of the Silk Road that had been till now lost to history. In this cave,

the discovering monks and archaeologists found tea buds and tea residue. Chemical analysis

determined the origin of the tea to the Yunnan province of China. This is a time before Tibet was

part of China and offers us proof that tea was traveling westward through the north of Tibet. The

residue implies that the tea was prepared as a beverage or made as an offering in the tomb along

with the tea buds. There is no other indication of reason, nor is there any knowledge as to whose

tomb it was. What is certain is that while we know that tea was traveling on the Silk Road during

the Tang Dynasty, this places tea on the Silk Road several centuries earlier. (Qui) We know tea

was already a known funerary offering from the time of Confucius, perhaps it was this reason for

which we find it in this Silk Road tomb. (Lotumolo)

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During this same time (1st-6th centuries CE), Buddhism arrives in China with wandering

monks from India. Thus, we see the rise of the second narrative for the ancient history of tea

while monks struggle to translate Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Chinese. Some texts refer to

the Buddha as having discovered tea in the 6th century BCE. In some translations, it is his

eyelashes that fall into his cauldron of hot water, while in others the leaves spring spontaneously

from a nearby bush. Both lead to the tea being ingested, “tea being the best and most harmless

means of sustaining wakefulness.” (Griffiths 261)

The other translations indicate Bodhidarma, the founding father of Ch’an or Zen

Buddhism in China before it traveled to Japan, as to have discovered tea while attending to his

vows at a Shaolin temple, when he fell asleep and broke his vows of meditation. Here instead of

eyelashes, it is either his eyebrows or more gruesomely his very eyelids that he cuts off and casts

to the ground in anger. They spring up as tea bushes the next day and a beverage of their leaves

brought joy and strength and wakefulness. (Mair and Hoh) “Once the vow was complete,

Bodhidarma is said to have turned his attention to helping the monk of the temple. Not only did

he introduce them to tea, to enable them to stay awake during long periods of meditation,” but he

also taught them physical training that developed into the martial art known as kung fu. (Martin

35-36)

Whether it is due to the medicinal properties, the formerly Taoist magical uses, the social

etiquette prescribed by Confucius, or due to these recorded figures, tea had become an important

part of the temple routines in Ch’an and other forms of Buddhism throughout China. By 725, tea

earned its own Chinese character. As Buddhism grew in the Tang Dynasty, so did the use and

understanding of tea. It became a drink of monks, nobility and common soldiers.

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Out of a Ch’an monastery came one man, who although he rejected the opportunity to be

ordained, learned “the Buddhist custom of meticulously codifying the procedures relevant to

everyday life in monastic communities.” (Anderson 18) Lu Yu was this man and he traveled all

over China, from province to province and temple to temple learning all he could about tea. In

approximately 780, he finally wrote his own treatise on tea called the Ch’a Ching. It is a detail

on where and how to grow, harvest, prepare tea then how to brew and drink it. Lu Yu explains

the tools for both the growing and brewing of tea. (Yu and Carpenter) While his work is not

Buddhist in origin and contains no actual philosophy (though reflects much of the Confucian

etiquette of serving tea), it has been the foundation to all other studies on tea from his days

onward. The book is translated as the Book of Tea or the Classic of Tea. He describes tea as

boiled, whipped and steeped.

Tea was grown by monks at various temples, traveled to Buddhist temples in Japan and

was offered as a form of sacrifice to the Buddha along with incense. While the “one bowl” idea

lent to an interpretation that tea was drank from one communal bowl in the temples among the

assembled monastic communities before an image of the Buddha, this is unclear and cannot be

proven. In contrast, “the oldest known surviving example of Ch’an tea ritual (charei) involved

bringing individual bowls of powdered tea into the room, placing them before the assembled

guests, supplying hot water from a ewer, and then whipping the tea.” (Anderson 21) From

drinking tea before the Buddha, to sipping it in meditation, to sharing tea ceremonially, to

making tea an offering, tea has played a role in Ch’an Buddhism.

Ch’an Buddhism has transformed the drinking of tea and has contributed to its spread

along the Silk Road, but particularly to Japan. According to Ling Wang, Ch’an’s contributions to

tea include: “popularizing the practice of drinking tea”; “developing tea plantations and planting

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tea on mountains”; and “treating tea with a meditative mind and creating the Buddhist

characteristics of the tea ceremony” as mentioned. (Wang 67-69) Further evidence of tea

drinking in monasteries is found in the translations of two texts: Jingde Record of the

Transmission of the Lamp (26 volumes written by Venerable Daoyuan and describing the daily

routine of monks) and Amalgamation of Sources of the Five Lamps. In these texts are the

explanations and descriptions of how the dharma or teachings of the Buddha are passed on and

practiced. Tea is said to be drunk after meals and after naps for the Ch’an monks. Ch’an masters

held tea gatherings where “many things were discussed: Chan words, personal mind-sets, ways

of thinking, and experiencing the way of Chan.” (Yun and Poon 8-9)

Buddhism on the Silk Road in Brief

The Silk Road is a term coined by Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 to refer to

broad collection of trade routes from China to Persia. It was common practice for Indian

Buddhist monks to wander and spread their teachings wherever they went. Due to this, Buddhists

sects rose in the many places these monks traveled, including all over Central Asia in the trade

cities of the Silk Road. “This was the first large-scale missionary effort in the history of the

world’s religions (3rd century BCE), and its spread was tied to that of economic networks.” (Foltz

37) Many smaller schools of Buddhism had communities in these trade cities, though the larger

schools included Nikaya and Mahayana. Mahayana eventually displacing the other schools over

time, though Chinese monks kept many of the vinaya (practices) of the earlier Buddhist schools.

“What is true of all Buddhist schools is that their activities had an important
economic dimension. Traveling Buddhists, whether monks or businessmen
(monks, warriors and merchants),4 would come to the attention of local elites
4
See the book Silk Road, by Luce Boulnois.

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who would perceive advantages in associating themselves with the international

network these Buddhists were creating. Often they would support them through
the building of monasteries, which became centers for the increasingly global
Buddhist economy, enriched by the land they controlled and by the donations of
passing travelers seeking blessing and protection. (Foltz 42)

From the time of the Han Dynasty, texts were being translated into various languages for

the Buddhist communities along the Silk Road. Chinese monks have travels to India to obtain

and translate Buddhist texts, with the first likely being A Shigao of the 2nd century CE.

(Elverskog) The bulk of translations had occurred in Kucha’s temples in the 5th century, the most

famous of those being by Kumarajiva. (Hansen) We can see that is a given then that Buddhism

dominated the Silk Road in the first millennia and that they controlled much of the economic

structures and systems. They were the hubs of exchange and the anchoring points for traveling

monks. One of the most famous traveling monks was the Chinese Buddhist Xuanzang from the

7th century. However, tea was not the popular beverage at this early time in Buddhist history

along the silk road; it was mostly water or wine at the time. (Wriggins)

An Shigao is credited with teaching methods of meditation and formulating these early

practices for transmission and discussion, learning and debate, based on the Pali Canon within

the temples. Yet, so much of early Buddhism shares activities with Taoism simply due to the

nature of translating the texts and having only Taoist metaphors to rely upon. This changes

Kumarajiva and again with Xuanzang, helping Chinese Buddhism develop a distinct set of

schools of Mahayana and later Pure Land and Ch’an. (Dumoulin) Chinese Buddhism came to

dominate Central Asia for a time. “Rather than marginalized transfer points for passage of Indian

missionaries and Chinese pilgrims, Central Asian5 Buddhist centers developed distinctive

religious cultures and played a central role in the trans-regional exchanges.” (Neelis 289) With
5
Central Asia is where the bulk of the focus for Silk Road studies.

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T. Scarlet Jory Religions of the Silk Road Fall 2017

this being the case through the Tang dynasty, we can see how the rise of interest in tea and its

use in Buddhist practice might have become common in these Central Asian temples and

communities, especially if we look back to what I had written earlier of how tea was used in the

Chinese Buddhist temples.

Tea on the Silk Road

Most tea that traveled early on the Silk Road trade routes were of puer from the Yunnan

province of China. These were in the form of processed and aged bricks or cakes of tea that were

easy to transport. Otherwise, most Chinese drank green tea. (Martin) “Buddhism was the shared

belief of many writers of the Tang dynasty temperance tracts and so was the association between

tea and Chan that they became indistinguishable6…. Certainly by the twelfth century at least,

Chan monastic codes contained rules that specified exactly how to conduct tea ceremonies for

visitors,” an important aspect of exchanges along the Silk Road where temples hosted a great

many visitor. (Benn, Buddhism, Alcohol, and Tea in Medieval China 215)

Teahouses started to manifest in various cities along the Silk Road as early as the Tang

dynasty through the Song and Ming dynasties. (Whitfield) Some notable teahouses include those

in Chang’an and Dunhuang. Here in tea was commonly the loose green tea that was steeped.

(Martin) Archaeology has unearthed Chinese porcelain tea bowls and art showing people

drinking tea without really knowing the context however. (Fraser)

It is at this time we see more documents of trade for tea and the demand for tea, along

with tea taxations and the control of tea sales. Tea replaced silk as the items of trade for horses in

some cases. Tea swiftly became popular after that with scant documentation regarding the Silk

6
There is a mid 8th century saying Chancha yi wei which means Chan and Tea have but one flavor.

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Road or Central Asia. However, teahouse continued to exists, therefore so to tea and thus tea

culture.

Conclusion

During the Tang dynasty, tea practices were refined by Ch’an Buddhism into a collection

of ceremonies. Tea was used for healing, meditation, during debates and discussions about

sacred texts, within the rooms where the dharma was taught, and in any meetings. Some temples

even had a designated tea room and very precise practices for the sanga (monks and nuns).

Because most education occurred in conjunction with Buddhist temples or with the use of

Buddhist texts, these social practices would by extension also be learned through observation and

participation. Through the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, we see how tea becomes more

common with the rise of teahouses and the demand for tea further abroad. In Teahouses, pilgrims

and merchants relaxed, talked, shared culture and engaged in trade… over tea.

This has not changed today. We still meet to relax, talk, share culture and engage in trade

over tea (sometimes now coffee). Tea Culture, born in China (unless you favor the Indian

narrative), has permeated almost all modern cultures today. Travel anywhere now along the Silk

Road trade routes and every meeting starts with an invitation for tea.

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