Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a world history class.

旁白：听一段世界历史课上的演讲。

Female professor: Now, according to Chinese legend, the first person to drink tea was a Chinese emperor who lived nearly 5,000 years ago.

女教授：现在，根据中国传说，第一个喝茶的人是生活在大约5000年前的一位中国皇帝。

This emperor was…oh, you could call him an amateur scientist. And he wisely required all drinking water to be boiled, for hygiene.

这位皇帝……你可以称他为业余科学家。为了卫生起见，他明智地要求所有的饮用水都要煮开。

So, once, uh, when visiting some distant part of his empire, he noticed that a breeze had blown some leaves into his pot of boiling water.

所以，嗯，有一次当他来到自己国土中较为偏远的一个地方时，他注意到一阵风把一些树叶吹进了他那煮水的容器里。

And these leaves turned the water kind of brown.

这些树叶把水变成了棕色。

So…well, would it be your first impulse to drink this? Probably not.

那么，如果是你，你第一反应是喝它吗？应该不会。

But he thought the resulting brew smelled pretty good, and in the name of science and discovery, he tasted it, and the practice of drinking tea was born.

但他觉得煮出来的茶很好闻，于是以科学和发现的名义，他尝了一口，饮茶的习惯就诞生了。

Uh, well, a good story. But actually we cannot say with any certainty just who first discovered how to make tea.

好了，这是一个好故事。但实际上我们不能肯定谁最先发现泡茶的方法。

We can be confident, though, that the Chinese have been using it in some form for close to 5,000 years.

不过，我们可以相信，中国人以某种形式喝茶已经有将近5000年的历史了。

And, from those earliest times, more and more tea was cultivated to meet the growing demand, and tea became an important part of the economy of China.

从古代开始，人们越来越多的种植茶叶，以满足日益增长的需求，同时茶也成为中国经济的重要组成部分。

In fact, it was formed into sort of bricks and used as a common type of currency for trade.

事实上，人们把它做成一种茶砖，并把茶砖作为一种常用的交易货币。

But its effect on Chinese culture was even more profound.

但它对中国文化的影响更加深远。

Tea became extremely popular in China, and scholars even wrote works discussing how to grow tea, prepare it, drink it. Really championing tea…one of them saying it was like "the sweetest dew of heaven".

茶在中国变得非常流行，学者甚至写了作品讨论如何种茶、做茶、喝茶。真正一流的茶……其中一个学者将其形容为“天堂的甘露”。

Now, recommendations like this could only add to its huge popularity there.

现在，像这样的推崇只能增加它大量的人气。

But tea was also spreading throughout Asia.

但是茶传遍了整个亚洲。

In Japan, perhaps even more than in China, tea became a major cultural symbol, and one of refinement, of etiquette, and aesthetics.

在日本，可能比在中国更甚，茶成为一个重要的文化符号，代表更精致的礼仪和美学。

Uh, well, best seen in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, which is still performed today.

这些在日本传统的茶道上最为常见，茶道至今仍然在流行。

This is an intricate formal ritual, a ceremony that can take hours to complete.

这是一个复杂的正式的仪式，需要几个小时完成。

Clearly, tea became not just a beverage in Japanese culture, but much, much more.

显然，在日本文化中，茶不仅是一种饮料，而是有很多很多其他意义。

Tea eventually got to western Europe after European traders, uh, mainly Portuguese and Dutch, brought the first small commercial shipment of tea back to Europe.

在欧洲商人，主要是葡萄牙人和荷兰人，将第一批少量的商业茶叶运回欧洲之后，茶叶最终到达了西欧。

Unfortunately, it was mostly just treated as a curiosity, since no one knew quite how it was supposed to be used.

不幸的是，它大多只是被拿来满足人们的好奇心，因为没有人知道应该如何使用。

A few has some pretty strong opinions, though.

而且，有少数人还有一些相当强烈的意见。

One German doctor wrote a book saying tea was harmful, actually poisonous.

一位德国医生写了一本书，说茶有害，实际上是有毒的。

But at about the same time, another doctor, uh, from Holland, wrote another book calling tea a miracle cure for just about everything. Who to believe?

但大约在同一时间，另一位来自荷兰的医生写了另一本书，把茶称为治疗一切疾病的灵丹妙药。要相信谁呢？

So, anyway, tea didn't really catch on in Germany or France, as something just to enjoy drinking, they seemed to prefer coffee.

所以，无论如何，茶在德国和法国并不流行，作为饮料，他们更喜欢喝咖啡。

But England did take to tea, and to an extent that nobody could have foreseen such that, even today we tend to associate England, uh, Great Britain with tea.

但英国确实喜欢上喝茶了，而且没有人能预见到会那么喜欢。以至于即使在今天，我们也倾向于把英国、大不列颠和茶联系在一起。

And, uh, well, a bit of perspective, at the start of the eighteenth century, almost nobody in England drank tea, but by the end of it, almost everybody did.

而且，有一个观点，在18世纪初，英国几乎没有人喝茶。但到了最后，几乎每个人都喝了。

By the 1750s, official records show tea imports up from almost nothing to about 20 million kilos. And those records didn't even begin to account for all the tea smuggled into the country illegally, to avoid paying taxes.

直到十八世纪五十年代，官方记录显示，茶叶进口量从几乎为零到全国约有2000万公斤。而且这些记录甚至还没有开始统计所有为避税而非法走私到英国的茶叶。

And as for reasons for the popularity of tea there...

至于茶流行的原因是……

Well, tea first became fashionable after the King of England married a Portuguese princess who loved tea, and pretty soon more and more people started copying her and drinking tea.

英国国王娶了一位爱喝茶的葡萄牙公主，不久，越来越多的人开始模仿她喝茶，在那之后茶叶第一次开始流行起来。

Later, when a direct trade route was established between China and England, the supply of tea greatly increased.

后来，当中国和英国之间建立了直达的贸易路线，茶的供应大大增加了。

Most important, though, tea drinking became sociable.

但最重要的是，喝茶成为了一种社交活动。

And, uh, although coffee houses or taverns were generally considered to be for men only, tea shops became places where women could come and even bring their families.

尽管咖啡馆或酒馆通常被认为是专为男人而设的，但茶馆却成了女人们能来的地方，甚至带她们的家人。

And soon there were tea parties, uh, books on tea etiquette and even tea gardens, parks filled with lights, and walkways, and, and venues for musical performances, places where people of all social classes could go to drink tea and socialize.

很快就有了茶聚会、讲述茶礼仪的书籍，甚至有灯光、走道和音乐表演场所的茶公园，所有社会阶层的人们都可以到那里喝茶和社交。

By the end of the eighteenth century, all classes of English society drank tea, from royalty to common workers.

到十八世纪末，英国社会的所有阶层从皇族到普通工人都喝茶。

Tea became a staple of everyday life, part of the common culture and, uh, traditionally considered by many… the very mark of being English.

茶成为日常生活中的必备饮品，是共同文化的一部分，传统上被许多人认为是英国人的标志。