What's so good about black tea? (China)

A current student texted me on WhatsApp about the pu'er tea she'd been given, packed in an orange-skin casing (hollowed-out orange).

    I responded with, Quote 普洱茶 pǔ ěr chá was a newcomer over here in the late 70s / early 80s, more often sold as a health drink (especially for weight loss??) than just "tea". Unquote

    This reminds me of a Channel Four TV docudrama series I'd worked on in 1985, called Commodities, a six-part series released in 1986 on coffee, tea and sugar.

    I've already written a blog about something behind the scenes in that series: https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2019/05/sloppy-set-up.html.

    This pu'er tea WhatsApp text conversation with the student has pulled up another memory from the depths.

    The tea episodes of the Commodities series focused on tea production in Hangzhou in S.E. China, Assam in India, and Zimbabwe.  I worked on the footage shot in China, doing the translations and helping out with the editing in the cutting room.

    One batch of rushes [unedited film footage] had the interviewer asking the tea plantation manager about the black tea that his company was exporting.

Interviewer:  What's so good about black tea?

Manager:  It's rich in ... (a long list of nutrients), and good for ... (a long list of conditions).

Interviewer:  So, do you drink it at home?

Manager:  Oh no!  I drink green tea.

    The look on his face and his tone of voice were most interesting.  If I'd been allowed to add a subtext line in the subtitles, it'd be, "(This stuff is for non-Chinese people.  We only drink the real thing.)"

(China, 1985)

* For those who might not know:  (my version in a nutshell)  The Chinese traditionally drink green tea.  Black tea is something created for the export market.  Traditional "proper" tea (i.e., green tea) is roasted once, but the moisture retention is too high for it to withstand the long sea journeys across the world -- tea clipper Cutty Sark took 100–120 days to get from China to Britain, and that was considered quick.  A double-roasted [hence the darker colour and stronger flavour] version was thus created, so that it wouldn't go mouldy during that time. 

* Clipper:  Sailing Ship.  A 19th-century fast, three-masted sailing vessel designed for speed, often used for transporting cargo like tea.

A footnote on the issue of abduction in old China

This is not my own blog, but a footnote blog on the issue of abduction in old China, which reader Valerio had asked about.  It's historical knowledge, lifted from googling.

(from googling) 

Quote

... in pre-1949 China, the abduction and sale of girls for forced marriage, concubinage, or prostitution was significantly more common than boy abduction, driven by deep-rooted patriarchal traditions and economic hardship, though boys were also trafficked, especially later due to son preference, but the scale for girls was historically larger, often involving families selling daughters or outright kidnapping for the marriage market.

Why Girl Abduction Was More Prevalent:

• Patriarchal System: China's patrilineal society valued sons for lineage and labor, but daughters were often seen as a temporary asset, sold for dowries or to improve family finances.
• Economic Desperation: Poor families frequently sold daughters to brothels, as concubines, or into arranged marriages to survive.
• Marriage Market: A significant market existed for kidnapped or sold women to serve as wives (often in polygamous or forced unions) or sex workers, a practice called dianqi (wife-mortgaging) also existed. 

Boy Abduction (Different Context):

• While boys were also trafficked, especially under the later One-Child Policy when the demand for sons soared, this was often distinct from the pre-1949 pattern.
• In older China, boys were abducted for adoption (due to son preference) or labor, but the sheer volume of female trafficking for marriage/sexual exploitation was a defining feature of the era. 

In essence, the cultural preference for sons created a huge demand for females, leading to widespread abduction and sale of girls for various exploitative purposes long before the One-Child Policy exacerbated the gender imbalance.

Unquote

The dianqi / wife mortgaging mentioned above would be like modern-day surrogacy.  So did the Chinese invent yet another practice??  (Googling for teaching material one year, in the early 2000s, I found that loads more things were invented in China than we realise.  Common knowledge [to me] Chinese inventions:  gunpowder, fire crackers, fireworks, paper, silk, tea, porcelain.)

典妻（Dian Qi），又称租妻、搭伙，是中国古代一种以契约形式将妻子有偿租借给他人做临时夫妻（通常为生育）的陋习，盛行于宋元明清时期，反映了底层人民的贫困，是封建婚姻制度下对女性权利的剥夺，后虽有法律禁止但禁而不绝，最终在新中国成立后消失。这一习俗中，丈夫以获取财物为目的，将妻子出租，期间妻子承担生育责任，期满后回归原家，子女归典者所有。

(google translate) "Wife-renting" (Dian Qi), also known as "wife-sharing" or "partnership," was an ancient Chinese custom where a wife was rented out to another person for a fee under a contract to serve as a temporary spouse (usually for childbearing). Prevalent during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, it reflected the poverty of the lower classes and represented the deprivation of women's rights under the feudal marriage system. Although later prohibited by law, it persisted and eventually disappeared after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In this custom, the husband rented out his wife for financial gain; during this period, the wife bore the responsibility of childbearing, and upon completion, she returned to her original family, with the children belonging to the renter.

Mehmet of Aydin (Kusadasi, Turkey)

After three hours and endless shuttles between the OK game café and the bookshop, I caught a young man in the vicinity of the bookshop who could speak some English, and asked him what had happened to the keepers of the bookshop.  He thought they were closed for the day, so I asked him where else I would be able to find a bookshop to buy my map of Turkey. 

Just then, round the corner emerged a little old man (in his 60s? 70s?) from a side alley.  He was slightly bow-legged and walked with a bit of a limp.  

“Ah!  Mehmet!  Come here!” the young man pounced on him, speaking in Turkish.  “Can you take this lady to a bookshop to buy a map?”  

And so the young man handed me over to Mehmet, who gamely took on this unexpected assignment with total equanimity.

Leading the way, Mehmet asked over his shoulder, “Japon?” which was what I got asked a lot during my short stay in Kusadasi.  I said, “No.  Chin.”  

Walking on, Mehmet continued, in part speech and part gesture, placing his palm on his chest with each word to refer to himself, “Japon.  Korea.”  Then, with both hands miming clutching a rifle and strafing, “Bang!  Bang! Bang!  Bang!  Bang!” Ah, he’d been a soldier and been out in the Far East.  Then he stopped in the middle of the street, bent down to roll up one trouser leg, and pointing at a scar in the shin, said, “Japon, Osaka, Korea, bang, bang, bang.”  A sleeve was pushed up to reveal another scar, followed by the same explanation.

We arrived at a bookshop, but they only had a road map of Turkey, not a topographical one.  

I turned away to find Mehmet had not left me but was hanging around outside the shop to await the outcome.  Bless him.  

Noticing my empty hands, he raised his bushy eyebrows and asked, “No?”  I said, “No.”  He crooked his index finger, asking me to follow him, and led me to another bookshop a few lanes away.  Nope.  They only sold road maps.  And there was Mehmet again, waiting faithfully outside.  He took me to five bookshops in all before I found my topographical map. 

All this while, after the first bookshop, I was trying to work out how to thank him.  A monetary gesture of gratitude would be a bit vulgar, I felt.  

I’d noticed, plodding along behind him, that unlike most Turkish men I’d observed thus far on this holiday, he didn’t smoke, so I couldn’t give him a packet of cigarettes.  

Then, a flash on my brain screen: “Tea!”  So I put it to him, “Mehmet, chai?”  An instant and firm nod of the head from him: “Yes!”  

Right, I could repay my debt now and sleep well.

He led me to an open-air place by the seafront, where there were lots of tables and chairs, with people eating and drinking.  

We sat down, and Mehmet said to the waiter who approached, “Iki chai!”  

They were served in the typical Turkish fashion: with sugar, no milk, in a glass with no handle, scalding hot.  

I could hardly pick it up, never mind drink it.  Mehmet must have been born with a cast iron tongue, for he’d finished his before I’d even had a sip of mine.  Well, he'd had decades of practice, as the Turks drink tea like other people drink water.

In the meantime, I could feel the eyes of the other diners and drinkers drawn to our table, wondering what on earth a gammy-legged old Turkish man who couldn’t speak English was doing with a young(ish) Oriental woman who couldn’t speak Turkish, just sitting there together in total silence drinking tea. 

Mehmet sat there waiting for me to finish my tea, and I felt that he was going to pay as soon as I finished my tea, so I had to forestall him.  

I offered another cup of tea, “Mehmet, chai?”  “Yes!” he said immediately with great pleasure, and duly ordered two more.  

Good idea, this, I thought.  Can’t go wrong with the Turks offering them tea, as they can drink endless cups of the stuff.  I was beginning to pat myself on the head for coming up with this brilliant way of repaying Mehmet for all his trouble and patience. 

This time, scalded tongue or not, I bolted my tea to get ahead of him, so that I would be the one waiting for him to down his, which, somehow to my thinking, meant I’d be the one to pay for the tea, having finished drinking first.  

As soon as he finished the last drop, I leapt up and marched off to the till some 10 or 20 tables away to pay, waving a big note at the cashier, who shook his head and said, “No.”  Huh?  Wrong amount?  I offered another, bigger note.  Still he shook his head and said, “No.”  What??  I tried a third time and got the same response.  Puzzled, I then heard the young man, a German tourist, waiting next to me to pay say, “Male chauvinist society.” 

Sure enough, in confirmation, I saw Mehmet stroll leisurely across and hand over a note, which was instantly accepted.  OH NO, that was meant to be my treat to thank him, and now I’d caused him to spend money on me!!

Mortified, I stood there trying to come up with how else I could repay this sweet old man, when I felt a tap on my arm and Mehmet, index finger crooked, gestured to me to follow him.  

We crossed the road to a big office-block building opposite, through the main entrance of which Mehmet led me to the other end of the hall, where there was another door.  Through that door we emerged into a courtyard, at the bottom of which was a little shack, no bigger than a standard garden shed. 

As I followed Mehmet towards this shack, I registered out of the corner of my eye that there were lots of tables and chairs in the courtyard, but with the chairs tilted forwards on their front legs against the tables, just like how they do it when the restaurant/pub is closed for business for the day.

Mehmet unlocked the shed, and there on the wall opposite the door, staring out at me, was a faded photo of a young man in military regalia, complete with sword and epaulettes (and moustache — the standard upper lip ornament for Turkish men, I’ve found).  

Mehmet pointed at the photo, then put his palm on his chest.  

It was him as a young soldier!!  

I passed my open palm over my face and put up a thumb, to tell him he looked handsome.  He was right chuffed about it, and beamed from ear to ear. 

As I was basking in his happiness, I spied, to my horror, out of the corner of my left eye, sitting in the shed, professional tea-making equipment.  Mehmet was a tea-seller!  

So, not only had I taken him to someone else’s tea house and made him pay for the tea, I also made him pay for FOUR glasses of tea!