Coffee or Tea?

I don’t know about other boys and girls who are in their 20s, but I’ve developed an interest and liking to Chinese Tea (中国茶).

There are several explanations on how tea was introduced to the Chinese. According to one of the more interesting belief, tea was discovered by Shennong (神农氏). Before I tell you how he discovered tea, let me tell you a little bit more about Shennong.

Shennong was a tribal leader back in China 5,000 years ago. According to legend, one of his greatest contributions was teaching mankind how to use herbs as medicine. Before he understand the herbs, Shennong needs to identify the herbs properties (e.g. healing properties, poisonous or not… etc). It is said that Shennong has a transparent stomach and used himself as the experiment subject. He would take a sample of the herbs and consume it, and observe through his transparent stomach on how his body would react. He tried so many herbs, including poisonous ones and survived.

One day, Shennong tried another herb under a tree and this time, he’s not so lucky. The poison took effect and looked like Shennong is losing his life slowly; he leaned against the tree and sat down slowly. Suddenly a leaf fall from the tree and dropped into his bottle (or maybe tea cup), he drank the water with the leaf inside and a miracle happened, he was cured! From that day on, Shennong will bring some tea leafs as antidotes with him during his “field trip”. He also gave a meaningful name to the leaf, he called it “茶”. In Chinese, “茶” is pronounced the same as “查”; meaning “check” or “investigate” in English. Apparently, Shennong is using tea as a drink to clear out the poison in his body after consuming poisonous herbs; thus as a helpful tool to check the properties of the herbs.

This is an artist impression of the great Shennong. By 吴承砚, Ching dynasty.

After spending a couple of years in Buffalo, New York, coffee has always been my preferred drink (Ohh good old Folgers! My record was having 7 cups of coffee at International House of Pancakes at 2a.m. with my buddy).

Maybe I’ve grown old and started to worry about things that I put into my mouth. My personal view is that coffee is good, but tea is just better (for the fun of it or the healthy properties).

Take a visit to your nearest Chinese Tea store and ask for some free sips, you might be surprised by what you experience.


茶者南方之嘉木也 -- 《茶经》 陆羽