For All The Tea In China by Sarah Rose

[James]

First broadcast from 20090427 to 20090501. Read by Maureen Beattie

Episodes 01 20090427 In 1848, the East India Company engages a Scottish plant hunter to infiltrate deep into the interior of China to steal the lucrative secrets of tea. 02 20090428 Scottish plant hunter Robert Fortune disguises himself as a mandarin and sets sail on a junk for the famed green tea district of northern China. 03 20090429 Robert Fortune reaches the gates of a green tea factory in the Wu Yi Shan Mountains and is the first westerner to see the secret process that turns the leaves into delicate brews. 04 20090430 Having procured tea seeds and young plants from the fabled Wu Yi Shan Mountains, Robert Fortune has to transport them to India in order to kickstart a new industry in the Himalayan mountains. 05 LAST 20090501 Robert Fortune travels 250 miles by junk and sedan into the interior of China to discover what he can of the secrets of black tea. Read by Maureen Beattie. A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4. This little gem is exceptionally well researched and presented in a style that is immediately accessible to all. The author's extensive knowledge and experiences clearly come across. Setting scenes of a mountainous China; hospitable monks; river pirates, chiselling interpreters; bandits; druggies, but always with one eye open to plant collection and the ultimate goal acquiring tea plants. You can almost taste the tea. background information: "The Great British Tea Heist" In 1848, the British East India Company sent Robert Fortune on a trip to China's interior, an area forbidden to foreigners. Fortune's mission was to steal the secrets of tea horticulture and manufacturing. The Scotsman donned a disguise and headed into the Wu Si Shan hills in a bold act of corporate espionage. "Although the concept of tea is simple—dry leaf infused in hot water—the manufacture of it is not intuitive at all. Tea is a highly processed product. At the time of Fortune’s visit the recipe for tea had remained unchanged for two thousand years, and Europe had been addicted to it for at least two hundred of them. But few in Britain’s dominions had any firsthand or even secondhand information about the production of tea before it went into the pot. Fortune’s horticultural contemporaries in London and the directors of the East India Company all believed that tea would yield its secrets if it were held up to the clear light and scrutiny of Western science. Among Fortune’s tasks in China, and certainly as critical as providing Indian tea gardens with quality nursery stock, was to learn the procedure for manufacturing tea. From the picking to the brewing there was a great deal of factory work involved: drying, firing, rolling, and, for black tea, fermenting. Fortune had explicit instructions from the East India Company to discover everything he could: “Besides the collection of tea plants and seeds from the best localities for transmission to India, it will be your duty to avail yourself of every opportunity of acquiring information as to the cultivation of the tea plant and the manufacture of tea as practised by the Chinese and on all other points with which it may be desirable that those entrusted with the superintendence of the tea nurseries in India should be made acquainted.” But the recipe for the tea was a closely guarded state secret. In the entry to the tea factory, hanging on the wall, were inspiring calligraphic words of praise, a selection from Lu Yu’s great work on tea, the classic Cha Ching. The best quality tea must have The creases like the leather boots of Tartar horsemen, Curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, Unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, Gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, And be wet and soft like Earth newly swept by rain." (read more at the Smithosian mag)

So tell me, what's YOUR favourite tea? Mine is a good quality Darjeeling.

BBCForAlltheTeainChinaEpisode1.mp3

[Mike Hobart]

I have a roster for tea in my kitchen. It starts on Monday with Darjeeling, then works through six other varieties till I reach Sunday night, then we start again with Darjeeling on the following Monday. Included are Finest Ceylon, Orange Pekoe, Earl Grey, Prince of Wales, Dilmah Maharajah and Harrogate of Yorkshire. Then just to complicate things, I have English Breakfast at the start of the day and green tea with my evening meal. The only tea I've tried that I don't like is Lapsang Souchong -- I think it's a specialist taste.

[James]

Earl Grey is my second favourite.

[Riklaa]

This looks very interesting indeed! Thank You James---------------------------------------------------Rick

[James]

2 and 3

BBCForAlltheTeainChinaEpisode2.mp3

BBCForAlltheTeainChinaEpisode3.mp3

[James]

4 and 5

BBCForAlltheTeainChinaEpisode4.mp3

BBCForAlltheTeainChinaEpisode5.mp3

[semoshorts]

This is one of my favourite BBC readings.