Spies, Smugglers, and How a Bitter Plant Became the World's Favorite Drink

I am Japanese, and a tea enthusiast. I drink all kinds of tea and I love them all, except teabag teas. Tea leaves have to roam around in the pot freely during infusions to give their flavor and fragrance.

I really wish YT would push this kind of long, passionate, well informed content instead of actively harming humanity with brain rot and reaction videos.

Adam, as a student of history, anthropology, linguistics, and sociology, I have to admit that this is undoubtedly one of the most enlightening documentaries I have come across in a while. Thank you for creating such amazing content. Just my cup of tea!

Two notes, then location pins (and these were some incredible locations for this one). 1) First...if you do a quick "history of tea" Google search, you'll probably notice a ton of stories about a discovery of 6000-year-old tea in Eastern China. This story is everywhere and it is by far the oldest record of tea ever discovered. So why didn't we cover it in this video? See here's the thing. There are so many holes with this "discovery" I just cannot understand how it's become accepted as conventional wisdom. It doesn't fit, geographically, with any other evidence. It makes zero sense in context, it's never been peer reviewed, the "evidence" is a chemical compound that can also exist in fungus, and it took fifteen years for the people who analyzed the site to retroactively announce, oh, it's the world's first tea, see- tea comes from China! If this study is ever independently confirmed or more research comes out that supports anything about it, I'll apologize and revise this video. But it is my strong opinion that this is absolute nonsense. So we ignored it for this video in favor of...things that are verifiable. Just in case anyone has read about this and wonders why we didn't touch it. 2) I messed up in the to-camera voicer- minor thing, but since I lived in China forever it bothers me, and I want to clear it up. The script I wrote for myself mentions the discovery of ancient tea in Xishuangbanna and around an area called Pu'er. When I recorded it, I missed the word "and," which implies Pu'er is in Xishuangbanna. It's not. It's immediately to the north, they are side-by-side and this probably won't bother anybody else- but it bothers me, so there you go. Now...Locations! All in Bangkok. 1- Namsu (Shan State Burmese Restaurant): /pEvezxpSWWQp92sr8 2- Zhong Chinese Tea House: /7tym31AFDvDvKpKp8 3- Bhutan Kitchen: /gDFgX3WZuwRR5BCZ7 *quick note: shortly after our filming, Bhutan Kitchen moved to a better location. The map pin is correct- it's a few blocks away from where we filmed, but accessible from the road and now with parking. 4- English Afternoon Tea: /EZzGsEm1QxLcvaPw8 5- Masala Chai: /9JzDnYRDWWrw8MUC6 Cheers and thanks.

Salt, sugar, and tea are probably the three commodities that have shaped the modern world more than any other, and now you've covered them all. Great videos!

Banger after banger, this channel repeatedly and frequently produces some of the best video essays on YouTube

I'm from a part of Germany where we also have a unique tea ceremony of our own. It's on the north sea coast which has notoriously harsh winds and rain, so people who work outside offten still get a tea break to warm up between morning and lunchtime. The east frisian tea ceremony, called Teetied in our dialect: Brew a strong, black tea (broken chelon/assam mix is traditional). Put a chunk of rock sugar in your cup. Pour the tea over the sugar. Drip milk into the cup. Take a moment to watch the milk clouds. Most importantly: do not stir! Instead you will get different layers of taste, first bitter, then milky, then sweet. Sugar was expensive back then and this way your rock (called a Kluntje) could last for multiple cups. You have to drink at least three cups or it's considered rude. When your don't want another refill you put your (mostly decorative) teaspoon into the cup. Though not overly important, a proper tea set has either cobalt blue line work or is decorated with roses and is passed in a family for generations.

Matcha originated in China, just like white, yellow, green, oolong, black and Pu’er teas. People often associate matcha and green tea with Japan, because the Japanese are very good at marketing themselves. In fact, more than half of the 10 most revered Chinese teas are green teas.

Prescient. I was already drinking tea before I saw this in my feed. My father was a farmer. Growing up, he used tea instead of water for everything. No running water. He would get water from the river, start a fire, heat it in a tub along with tea he'd grown himself, and bathe in tea. He also told me one time he once had tea that was so concentrated, one thimble sized cup kept him up for three days straight.

Oh goodie! One of my favorite subjects get covered by one of my favorite documentarian. I’m here for it.

Omg I'm so excited for this I always watch history and "boring" videos before I go to bed and SO many of the videos recommended to me lately have been entirely AI and I'm so glad to see a real person talking about something I'm super interested in

I can tell the Chinese tea are still way more excellent than the rest of the world. It smells immensely leafy and fresh with a touch of sweet, flower sent. Not sure if Robert really found the secret.

Man. What a great day! A Tasting History AND an OTR. . . And the OTR is about TEA! Let's gooooo!

How DARE youtube not notify me until 9 whole minutes after this dropped?!

These videos deserve millions of view. Connecting the history with real contemporary restaurants is such a great idea.

This is probably the channel I wait in anticipation for the most. This is gonna be so good!!!

Thanks again China!

There was a Himalayan Restaurant that served yak butter tea where I used to live. I fell in love with it at first sip. I think that some foreigners expect tea to taste a certain way. It's richer and more savoury. I love it.

Tea/coffee was offered by management as an alternative to beer for workers operating machines during the industrial revolution especially in the UK. The introduction of Tea/coffee drinking had noticeable effect on reducing water born illnesses.

😮I'm addicted to my favorite Vietnamese mountain black tea, (loose leaf) I wish more Americans knew about making good tea, the way they know about making good coffee. I can't get a good cup of tea anywhere but at home.