China's 5,000 year-long tea culture owes much to the initiative and acumen of Chinese women. It was they who first came up with the idea of peddling bowls of tea on city streets, and of opening teahouses that were – and still are – places to discuss commercial, philosophical and everyday matters, listen to story tellers recount ancient legends, or simply savor a cup of fine tea.

Fu Xian of the Jin Dynasty (265-420) made one of the earliest recorded references to tea peddling in his Director of Retainer' Teachings. Fu writes: "An old lady from Sichuan began selling tea and porridge in the streets, but a group of minor officials smashed her cart. Later she sold cookies instead. It is difficult to understand why they forbade the sale of tea and porridge." An idealized version of this story appears in Qi Lao's Biography of Guangling. In his admiration for the old lady from Sichuan as forerunner of China's many teahouse proprietresses, he made her an immortal. Qi Lao writes: "During the reign of Emperor Jinyuan an old lady sold bowls of tea from a cart at the market. People bought tea from her from morning to dawn, and she distributed much of her profits to beggars and orphans. When state officials heard about this they threw her in jail, but during the night the old lady gathered up her tea making paraphernalia and flew out of the window to the heavens."

Women peddling of bowls of tea during the Jin Dynasty soon progressed to opening specialist tea stores that naturally gave rise to teahouses, where patrons could sit and drink tea or buy packets of tea leaves to present as gifts. Teahouses became even more common during the northern and southern dynasties (420-581).

Tea cultivation reached its zenith in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). There were eight separate tea zones around China that achieved an annual tea production of over 100,000 tons. Lu Yu's book of Tea Stories in 780 AD celebrates China's prosperous tea culture. Feng Yan recounts in his Records of Hearing and Seeing, "Teahouses opened in Zou, Qi, Cang, Di and eventually Jing Yi. Their patrons were from all walks – from common laborers to Taoists."

The popularity of tea drinking created out of necessity a more suitable vessel for the beverage than bowls, which often scalded the drinker's hands. The so-called "three piece suite" was devised by a young woman from Chengdu, according to Zixia's Tang Dynasty Compilation of Tea Tales. The story goes that during the Tang Jianzhong reign the daughter of Prime Minister Cui Ning, who had enjoyed drinking tea since her childhood, came up with the idea of placing the tea bowl on a saucer. To keep the bowl in place she first tried melting wax on the saucer, and then painting it with lacquer. Her finishing touch -- a lid -- crowned the "three-piece suite" of bowl, saucer and lid that neither slipped nor scalded. This inventive young woman dedicated her invention to her delighted father, Prime Minister Cui Ning, to whom it symbolized to him a microcosm in which, "The heaven covers, the earth carries, and people cultivate," Cui Ning's philosophical vision of this "tea set" lives on today in the concept of "San Cai", which is heaven, man and earth.

During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) 18 teahouses sprang up in Beijing. Cao Xueqin's classic Chinese novel, A Dream of Red Mansions is full of references to various fine teas. One of the main characters in the novel, Miaoyu is an expert in the tea-making ritual. Chapter 41 describes how Jia Baoyu sips a superior brand of green tea at the Green Bower Hermitage. Miaoyu's supreme tea making art is manifest in her tea-making equipment and the precious water in which she brews it. Miaoyu serves Grandma Jia "Brow of Laojun" tea, reputed to be "silver needle" tea plucked from Junshan Mountain. Her tea pot is of kamcheng ware, fired in the Cheng kiln, which was the official Jingdezhen kiln of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Chenghua reign. She brews tea leaves in accumulated rain water, or "heavenly springs." The cup in which she serves the character Baochai tea has a handle and is inscribed, in the great poet Sushi's calligraphy, with the characters "King Jin Kai's Treasure Ware." The character Daiyu's cup is smaller and in the distinctive style of an alms bowl. Bao Yu's cup is her own "Green Jade scoop." As she says, "All your tea wares are antiques and treasures, but mine is seen everywhere." The water in which Miaoyu brews tea leaves and serves Xue Baochai, Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu in her chamber is from melted snow on plum blossom in the Coiled Incense Temple on Dark Barrow Mountain, collected and purified in buried earthen jars.

China's tea culture declined during the war-ravaged Republican period. But there were patriots and heroines who used teahouses as places to plot against Japanese invaders and warlords. 

Reform and Opening-up brought a revival of Chinese tea culture. There are today more than 1,400,000 hectares of tea gardens in China that yield 1,000,000 or more tons of tea leaves.  China's agricultural tea output amounts to approximately 40 billion yuan, of which 300,000 tons is exported, generating revenues of US$ 0.5 billion. Domestic sales of tea amount to 660,000 tons, which earn a retail sales income of 56 billion yuan. China has more than 180,000 primary tea processing mills, 1,800 tea refineries, 300 large-scale tea wholesale markets, 100,000 tea retail outlets, and 60,000 tea houses that generate total business revenues of 30 billion yuan. The 6 million-ton annual production of tea soft drinks also brings in a 35 billion yuan income. Tea-related workers include more than 80 million (including part-timers) tea farmers, 5 million in the tea processing industry and 15 million in tea marketing. Tea has become a major industry generating a cash flow of over 100 billion yuan. It also  promotes health, the development of agriculture and employment opportunities. China's prosperous tea industry is largely attributable to the efforts of Chinese women.

Statistics show that 90% of teahouse owners, including those of Beijing's famous Laoshe, Wu Fu, Geng Xiang, Bo Yuan Fang, Bi Lu Xuan, Ting Hu Xuan Bi Shui Dan Shan, Ci Ming Yuan teahouses, and also the Dong Li Tea Gardens, are women. Among China's tens of thousands of tea merchants, 95% are women, as are the CEOs of more than 50% of Chinese tea companies. They include Sun Yuehua, original president of the China Tea Company; Wang Xiulan, president of the Zhang Yiyuan Tea Company; Sun Danwei, president of the Wuyutai Tea Company; and Zhu Lili, president of the Geng Xiang Tea Company.

Tea leaf pickers are also mainly women, by virtue of their slim, deft fingers that pluck without bruising millions of tons of tea leaves. China tea, a product that embodies oriental womanly know-how and industry, is enjoyed all over the globe, and acts as an ambassador of peace, good health and moderation.

Famous poet Su Dongpo once said "The best of tea has a beauty all its own, and the tea trade is one nurtured and maintained by women."

(Source: http://www.cha-china.cn/Translated by womenofchina.cn)