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Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Bruce Gulland.
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And I am Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
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Some people drink it with food in the afternoon.
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Some people drink it to give themselves energy in the morning.
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Some people drink it as part of a ceremony.
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Some people drink it when they are sick.
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Some people drink it hot.
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Some people drink it very cold.
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People have been drinking it for hundreds of years, in hundreds of countries. What is it? Tea!
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Tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. People pick the leaves off the plant. They set the leaves to dry. The tea leaves are ready when all the water from the leaves is evaporated. There are many ways to prepare the leaves before making the tea drink. Some tea leaves are left open to the air before they are dried. This makes the leaves darker. They will taste stronger. Some people mix tea leaves with flowers, oils, and other plants to give teas different tastes. The people who originally discovered tea developed these methods many years ago.
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The story of tea begins in China. Chinese history says that over 5,000 years ago, Chinese emperor Shen Nung discovered tea. Stories say that a dry leaf from the tea plant fell into the emperor’s cup of hot water. The emperor saw that his water turned dark. He tasted the water and liked it. This was the first cup of tea.
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However it started, tea became very popular in China. People believed that tea was healthy. People in China also created many different ways to prepare tea. In fact, a man named Lu Yu wrote a book just about tea, late in the eighth century.
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Soon after this, tea travelled to Japan. Japanese Buddhist priests travelled to China. And they brought tea back with them. In Japan, people developed special ceremonies to serve tea. Serving tea became a new form of art. It was most common among wealthy people.
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Tea was an important part of both Chinese and Japanese culture. It had travelled to other Asian countries too. But tea had not yet travelled anywhere else in the world. Finally, in the late 1500s, Portuguese travellers brought small amounts of tea back to Europe. Portugal was one of the first European countries to trade with China. Portugal worked with the Netherlands to move the tea through Europe. Dutch ships took tea to France and other countries on the Baltic Sea.
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Only very wealthy people had enough money to drink tea in Europe. It took many months to transport the tea from Asia. And only a limited amount was transported. But more countries started to trade with China. They also brought tea back to Europe. Prices became lower, and more people could drink tea.
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Today, England is the European country most known for tea. British traders started shipping tea to England in the late 1600s. Tea trade had become a very profitable business. England imported about 18,000 kilograms of tea a year in 1699. Ten years later, the country imported six times that amount of tea!
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British colonists also brought tea wherever they settled. Tea became very important in India. It is still a very important crop there. And Indian tea is known around the world.
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Tea played an important part in one British colony you might know. This colony is now known as the United States of America. England sent tea to America. But as time went on, England raised the taxes on the tea and other goods it sent. The people living in the colonies did not like these taxes. To protest the high taxes, a group of colonists took a large shipment of tea and threw it into the ocean. Today, this event is known as “The Boston Tea Party”. It was one of the most important events in the American Revolution.
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Tea has also changed over many years. In the past, people drank tea by putting the leaves directly into the water. But around 1908, an American inventor developed a new method – tea bags. Thomas Sullivan put the tea in a small silk bag. This bag of tea could be put directly into the hot water.
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At first people, in Britain did not like tea bags. But during World War II, people could not get their normal tea. So they had to use tea bags. Today most tea bags are made of paper. And they are very popular in many parts of the world.
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Today, people on every continent drink tea. But people in different places drink tea differently. In the United Kingdom, tea became part of the daily meal.
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Traditionally, two meals involved tea in British homes. These meals became popular in the 1600s. The first was afternoon tea – or “low tea”. This was popular among wealthy people. They would drink tea and eat small sandwiches of meat and bread. This meal happened around three o-clock in the afternoon. The other meal was called “high tea.” High tea was a larger meal eaten later in the night. It was popular among poorer people.
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In Western Asia and the Middle East, a popular way to enjoy tea is as Masala Chai. Masala Chai is a drink made from black tea. But this drink has sugar, spices and milk in it.
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Around the world, people boil plants and flowers to make drinks similar to tea. These are called tisanes. A tisane is any drink made from hot water and any plant material, except from the tea plant. They are also often called herbal teas.
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In areas of South America people enjoy a particular tisane. The drink is called Mate. People make it from the leaves of the yerba mate plant. A person puts dry yerba mate leaves into a dry gourd. This is a container made from a dried vegetable skin. He then adds water to the gourd. He drinks the liquid through a thin metal tube – a bombilla.
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People in Southern Africa make a drink called rooibos. This hot drink is made similar to tea. But instead of tea leaves, it uses the leaves from the rooibos plant. The drink is a red color, and is often called red tea.
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However you drink tea, the next time you have a cup, think of all the people around the world who are joining you! Enjoy!
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Do you drink tea? What kinds of tea do you drink? Tell us what you think! You can leave a comment on our website. Or email us at radio@radioenglish.net. You can also comment on Facebook at facebook.com/spotlightradio.
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The writer of this program was Joshua Leo. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at www.radioenglish.net. This program is called “The Amazing History of Tea”.
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Visit our website to download our free official app for Android and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.
Question:
Do you drink tea or tisanes? What is your favorite kind of tea?
i like tea. it make my day better
Yaeh , I drink the tea . My favorite tea is green tea with flowers and peach tea . Thanks for this good brodcast .
Yes I drink tea three times per day and my favorite is read tea
Yes , i drink tea every day . My favourite kind of tea is classic tea with mint. The tea is consider a common drink in our country , especially my home the tea drink must available in daily meals. Iam so interested about the tea story and i have a conflict about some words like tisance .I will getting search about the meaning of these words.thanks a lot .
yes, I drink tea, so my favorite tea is red tea with a mint flavor.
yes I do …. for me , I prefer green tea with mint to red tea .
Yes, Iam drink tea I love Ahmed earl grey England tea it’s so delicious
Ilove hot tea and drink tea with the milk in the morning
Yes l love ahot tea with a milk in the morning
Yes I like the tea it’s my favorite drink and I love the england tea
Vietnamese love tea (we also have Vietnamese tea culture). But I don’t really like green tea, because it tastes a litter bitter, you know. Actually, I like to drink milk tea more than traditional green tea. Or sometimes when I hang out with my friends, I will have a cup of lemon tea (tea with lemon juice and sugar).
yes, I do and I especially like herbal teas like Ginger Tea, Rooibos Tea, and Lemon Balm Tea.
Yes, I like to drink tea. I drink it in the morning and in the afternoon
First of all, my mother prepares tisanes to me when I am patient or I have influenza .Moreover, My favorite tea is black tea , way of preparation it by Heating the water then put tea bag after that let the tea some minutes during it the tea will convert from red to black ,it is very delicious Especially in the winter season
I like drink tea and all my family like we drink it like a America
They drink at afternoon we do that but not at 3 pm 4pm or 5pm
Without sandwich and sometimes we drinks after dinner!
yes c I drink Tea, it’s not my favorite drink but I like it .. in our country ‘Middle East we drink it with milk also and with some spices,, yummy!
yes I do and I prefer the normal tea with fresh mint
I really into drink tisanes. My favorite kind of tea is flower tea. Because, it quites easy to drink and pleasant fragrance. In addition, flower teas also help people drink beautiful skin and maintain shape.
Sometimes, when go to coffee shop I drink a cup of hot lipton tea instead of coffee. This tea is popular in my country.There’re many ways to enjoy tea on the world.People said that drink tea is good for health. In my company, Chinese and Taiwanese always drink tea after finished their breakfast. My boss drink tea the whole day instead of water. He put tea directly into hot water and wait five minutes, then enjoy it. This way is very simple and easy to make a cup of hot tea.How about you? Pls share with us the way you enjoy tea? Thanks!
I like to drink fresh tea leaves. In VN traditional tea, we will put the fresh tea leaves into hot water and keep it for about 15 minutes and enjoy. You can drink it instead of water .
The tea with milk
Of course, I do! Here in Saudi Arabia, we consider tea as important drink in our daily life.
Masala is a famous drink in winter, although we call it Crak, I do not like it since I do not like drinks with strong flavors.
I like normal tea with milk it is the best, spicily in the morning, it makes me happy.(if I am not fasting rn I would make one:) )
I’m Iranian. In my country, most of the time, we have black tea. And the most of people have tea about four times in a day.
I’m Iranian. In my country, most of the time, we have black tea. And the most of people have tea about four times in a day.We use tea for our party.
I love to drink tea. In this period, i like to drink the AHMADTEA. My prefer taste is the earl grey tea
in my country Iraq People drink hot tea all the time.
But I don’t drink tea since l was
a child, but this report made me excited to drink tea every day
Yes, I sometimes drink tea, especially during hosting people. I like bag red tea.