# From "The Hidden History of Beverages" by Alexander Lukashev

## 4. The First Tea: From Chewing the Leaf to Brewing It

Part One (history), chapter 4 of 14 · 6 footnotes to 6 sources
Page: https://herbalmind.bar/history/the-first-tea/

Where tea began, the oldest tea found by archaeologists, how pressed and aged tea came about, and what chemists find in tea today.

Sections:
- **What We Know About Tea** — tea in the earliest Chinese materia medica, the oldest tea from tombs, and tea carried to Tibet
- **What Is Found in Teas Today** — theanine and its discovery, and lovastatin in post-fermented pu-erh

Questions this chapter answers:
- Where is tea still eaten rather than drunk?
  [The answer is in the book](https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723)
- What is the oldest tea ever found, and where was it found?
  Short answer: Leaves left over from boiling or brewing, in a bowl from a tomb at Zoucheng in Shandong — about 2,400 years old, identified in 2021.
- How did tea reach the Tibetan Plateau, and why was it pressed and aged?
  [The answer is in the book](https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723)
- Who discovered theanine, and when?
  Short answer: Yajiro Sakato, at Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Kyoto, isolated it from green tea in 1949.
- Does pu-erh contain the same molecule as a cholesterol drug?
  [The answer is in the book](https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723)

Short answers only. The full account, with its sources, is in chapter 4 of the book — https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723

Sources:
- Shennong bencao jing 神農本草經. Reconstructed by Sun Xingyan and Sun Fengyi, 1799.
- Lu, Houyuan, Jianping Zhang, Yimin Yang et al. “Earliest Tea as Evidence for One Branch of the Silk Road across the Tibetan Plateau.” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 18955. [DOI 10.1038/srep18955](https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18955).
- Jiang, Jianrong, Guoquan Lu, Qing Wang and Shuya Wei. “The Analysis and Identification of Charred Suspected Tea Remains Unearthed from Warring State Period Tomb.” Scientific Reports 11 (2021): 16557. [DOI 10.1038/s41598-021-95393-w](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95393-w).
- Sakato, Yajiro. “Studies on the Chemical Constituents of Tea: Part III. On a New Amide Theanine.” Nippon Nōgeikagaku Kaishi (Journal of the Agricultural Chemical Society of Japan) 23, no. 6 (1950): 262–267. Submitted August 1949. [DOI 10.1271/nogeikagaku1924.23.262](https://doi.org/10.1271/nogeikagaku1924.23.262).
- Juneja, Lekh Raj, Djong-Chi Chu, Tsutomu Okubo et al. “L-Theanine — a Unique Amino Acid of Green Tea and Its Relaxation Effect in Humans.” Trends in Food Science & Technology 10, no. 6–7 (1999): 199–204. [DOI 10.1016/S0924-2244(99)00044-8](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0924-2244%2899%2900044-8).
- Zhao, Zhen-jun, You-zhao Pan, Qin-jin Liu and Xing-hui Li. “Exposure Assessment of Lovastatin in Pu-erh Tea.” International Journal of Food Microbiology 164, no. 1 (2013): 26–31. [DOI 10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2013.03.018](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2013.03.018).

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These are chapter cards — what each chapter covers, with a few short answers and the book’s free pages — not the chapters themselves.
Apple Books, with a free sample: https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723
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