My partner, while in South Korea to play in a baduk tournament late last year, visited a tea shop to buy me a gift. Knowing next to nothing about tea he bought the second most expensive box and hoped for the best. Inside was a tin of ujeon, a fine first flush green tea picked before the 'grain rain' of mid-April, equivalent to a Japanese shincha. All was well.
We hear very little about Korean tea here in Australia because not much of it makes its way to our teacups. South Korea is the 30th largest growing region in the world (which is miniscule, considering the top 12 countries comprise 97% of world tea exports), and its citizens consume most of its production. North Korea also produces tea but, as you might guess, just about 100% of it is consumed domestically (except this sample).
The history of tea in Korea is rather fascinating, if contentious. Knowledge of tea first reached its shores in 48AD via Buddhist monks studying in China, but it was not until around the 7th century that tea seeds were brought over to be cultivated. Tea and Buddhism enjoyed a close relationship; the king would gift tea to priests and monks who would in turn make a ritual offering to Buddha, as well as drink it themselves. Unlike tea culture in China and Japan, tea drinking was not reserved for the upper classes. Ordinary folk also practised making ritual tea offerings to Buddha and drank tea regularly.
All this changed in the 14th century when Confucianism overtook Buddhism as the national religion. In addition to discouraging tea drinking for its links to Buddhism, the Confucian rulers imposed a tax on tea to make growing it unviable. By the late 16th century, the remaining tea fields were devastated by the Seven Years War with Japan.
It took a couple of centuries for Korea – and Buddhism – to recover. In the early 19th century, a scholar by the name of Jeong Yakyong (whose nickname 'Dasan' means 'mountain of tea'), was exiled to the southern part of Korea. He encountered an enclave of Buddhist monks who had kept a plantation and tea drinking practices alive. Dasan famously wrote poems praising the healthful properties of tea, reinvigorating tea culture in Korea. One person he inspired was a monk named Cho-ui, who wrote two important books about tea, equivalent to Lu Yu's The Classic of Tea. Cho-ui also revived darye, the Korean tea ceremony. For this, he became known as 'The Saint of Korean Tea'.
Unfortunately, war once again disrupted the country in the first half of the 20th century and it was not until Korea won independence from Japan in 1945 and survived the Korean War (1950-53) that its tea practitioners could rekindle tea culture. This was largely thanks to the Venerable Hyo Dang who wrote a modern study, The Korean Way of Tea (1973), codified the Panyaro brewing method for preparing Korean green tea, and launched the Korean Association for the Way of Tea.
It took a while for the tea plantations to recover from centuries of neglect but the fields that had turned wild provided a good breeding stock for a renaissance. Today, the Republic of Korea's tea-growing areas hug its southwest corner. Most of its production is green tea with a little given over to a semi-oxidised and fully oxidised leaf, and even a post-fermented pressed tea.
A word of warning, though. Be careful when you order 'tea' at a restaurant – such is the enthusiasm for tea culture than anything steeped in water is considered tea, from ginger root to hydrangea leaf. Ordering nokcha will get you a dose of Korean green tea and with that you can wish Korea's tea culture a 'faster, higher, stronger' return.
