For millennia it was a medicinal beverage obtained by boiling fresh leaves in water, but around the 3rd century it became a daily drink, and tea cultivation and processing began. The Chinese empire tightly controlled the preparation and cultivation of the crop. It was even specified that only young women, presumably because of their purity, were to handle the tea leaves.
In the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280 AD), tea processing systems has made some progress. The people of Wei knew how to make tea cake and loose tea to storage them well. During period of this time, it has been regarded as the starting point of modern tea processing systems.
During Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) Lu Yu in his book (The Book of Tea) recorded a detailed account of ways to cultivate and prepare tea, tea drinking customs, the best water for tea brewing and different classifications of tea. He had strict notions about the proper procedure for brewing, steeping, and serving tea.
In pre-modern China, tea was hydraulically pressed into embossed molds. The resultant bricks (most often smooth and rectangular, but also round and/or textured) had the virtue of being standardized by type of tea, weight, and purity of content.
During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD), tea bricks were replaced with loose leaf tea by imperial decree. This change was meant to make life easier for farmers since the traditional method of creating tea bricks was quite labor intensive. During Ming Dynasty also roasting dehydration method appeared.
Up to the mid-17th century, all Chinese tea was green tea. As foreign trade increased, though, the Chinese growers discovered that they could preserve the tea leaves with a special fermentation process. The resulting Black tea kept its flavor and aroma longer than the more delicate green teas.
In the 1830s, the first tea estates were established in the Indian state of Assam, using tea plants brought from China.
Tea processing in China
