The Archaeology of Tea: Taste, Smell and Sensory Approaches to Plant Use in Ancient China

Tea (Camellia Sinensis) is one of the most popular beverages in the world. Poems and writings from the Tang Dynasty onwards celebrate the sensory experience of consuming tea, and the links between taste, tea connoisseurship, and ceramics have also been noted in literature. However, the early history of tea is shrouded in mystery. Archaeological discoveries within the past decade have pushed the use of tea leaves in China far earlier than current written records, and my paper seeks to understand early tea culture from the Warring States Period to the Western Han Dynasty using archaeobotanical, chemical, and ceramic analysis. Furthermore, archaeological discussions of plants in the past rarely touch on the taste and smell of food and drink. Hence, using tea as a case study, I hope to develop theories and methods to consider the role of taste within wider archaeobotanical discussions hope to answer the following questions: 1) why should we study taste in archaeology? 2) how should we study taste in archaeology? 3) what was the ‘taste’ of tea in archaeological sites discovered around China? 4) How does the role of taste fit into wider archaeobotanical debates or interpretative models?