Tea is the world’s second most consumed drink after water, and its history is anything but calming. This episode follows tea from bitter leaves chewed raw or boiled into soup in ancient Yunnan and Sichuan, through its refinement in the Tang dynasty, to the trade routes that explain why the world calls it cha, chai, or tea.

We cover Britain’s tea obsession and the silver drain that led the East India Company to smuggle opium into China and fight the Opium Wars, then botanist Robert Fortune’s 1848 mission to take tea plants and know-how out of China. We also explain how oxidation creates green, oolong, and black tea from one plant, the milk-first class divide, tea rituals in Mali and Turkey, climate stress, and labor problems on modern plantations.

• How the words cha, chai, and tea trace sea and overland trade routes
• How Britain’s demand for tea led to opium smuggling and the Opium Wars
• How Robert Fortune smuggled tea plants and processing know-how out of China
• How oxidation turns one plant, Camellia sinensis, into green, oolong, and black tea
• The milk-first class divide, Mali’s three-cup tradition, and the climate and labor problems facing tea today