Much like Macho Man Randy Savage’s turn against Hulk Hogan on April 2, 1989, matcha powder and tea in general is quite polarizing. With a bright green color reminiscent of Randy’s jacket at the 1993 Royal Rumble, matcha is a finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea leaves. Approximately 158 million cups of tea are consumed in America every day, which sounds like a large number, but when compared to the 400 million cups of coffee the US drinks a day, it’s pretty paltry. In many parts of the world, the disparity between those two numbers is much smaller, with countries like the U.K., Turkey, Egypt, and Russia consuming more tea than coffee. (Not Finland though, Finnish people consume more coffee than any other nation in the world. Yet another reason I want to move there.) Get ready folks, this blog is going to be about the history of tea in America and pro wrestling. I honestly have no idea how this will go so buckle up.
Matcha, a stone-ground Japanese-style green tea, dates back to the Chinese Song Dynasty (960-1279) in which the method of making powdered tea from dried tea leaves, and preparing the drink by whipping hot water and tea leaves together. Zen Buddhists brought green tea to Japan from China in 1191 from the monk Myōan Eisai. Green tea itself has always been part of the American identity with hyson green tea being one of two Chinese green teas tossed overboard during the 1773 tea rebellion in Boston Harbor. In fact, 22% of the tea tossed into the Harbor on December 16th, was green tea.
Let’s think of this time in American History as the Monday Night Wars between the World Wrestling Federation (now known as World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE after a legal battle with the World Wildlife Fund) and World Championship Wrestling. The Tea Party was the climax of the resistance growing against the British against the Tea Act. You know the whole taxation without representation bit. This led to a group of 30-130 men dumping 342 chests of tea into the Harbor leading to The American Revolution. One can argue that the forming of the NWO (New World Order) was a similar moment. If the WWF owned by Vince K. McMahon and formed in the 1950s by Vincent J McMahon, a titan and the largest wrestling promotion in the world, must represent the British Empire, then surely Ted Turner’s upstart World Championship Wrestling must represent the burgeoning young American nation. The formation of the NWO was a gimmick that saw unsanctioned wrestlers running roughshod over WCW. On May 27, 1996, only eight days after wrestling his last match for WWF, Scott Hall (formerly Razor Ramon) appeared on WCW’s Monday Night Nitro, jumping into the ring, and gave a blistering speech, asking the stunned crowd, “Do you want a war?” On June 10th, the crowd was once again stunned to see Kevin Nash (formerly Diesel) appear. This was a seeming invasion from the evil empire! I realize now this sort of makes Vincent K McMahon to be a King George like figure and holy hell does that ring true. On July 7th, 1996’s Bash at The Beach, we saw perhaps the most shocking heel turns (villainous) of all time. Hulk Hogan joined with the NWO. But on some level, this all worked and made it seem as if this group was sent by the WWF to control the poor WCW roster just as the British tried to control the colonies. Of course, the NWO “invasion” of WCW was all kayfabe (part of the predetermined storyline) so the American Revolution comparison may not completely work here but the animosity between WWF and WCW was certainly as legitimate as the British and the Colonies.
Okay, right, so we’ve dumped all the tea in the Harbor and we, the colonists have now boycotted tea for many years. We’re now going to flash forward to 1908 and the creation of tea bags by a man named Thomas Sullivan. Although patented in 1903, tea bags were first marketed by the coffee importer in New York after his customers mistakenly steeped the silk bags containing tea Mr. Sullivan had shipped. Like Mankind aka Mick Foley getting chokeslammed through the top of a steel cage by the Undertaker at 1998’s Hell in a Cell, this accidental moment changed the way we consume wrestling and tea, forever. Honestly, the amount of times the audience and even the performers thought Mick died in that match, blows my mind. And to think, Foley was the one that came up with the idea of being thrown off the top of the steel cage into the Spanish announcers table. Completely changed the world of wrestling and one of the most famous matches ever. Upon realizing the popularity of this silk tea bag mistake, Thomas went on to invent a gauze tea bag as silk was much too expensive a material to use every day. In 1929, a man named Adolf Rambold invented the tea bag packing machine called the Pompadour and in 1949 he invented the two chambered tea bag which is still the most popular today.
In 1950, the US banned imports from China due to China’s involvement in the Korean War. It is interesting to note that The Tea Council of America was formed in the same year representing tea packers, brokers, importers, as well as allies from India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. Perhaps due to the formation of the TCA and despite the China trade embargo, the popularity of the tea bag in America grew exponentially. During this time, the tea being consumed by the American people was largely black tea from India as yellow, white, and green tea was near impossible to get due to the aforementioned trade embargo. In 2001, the WWF bought out WCW and Extreme Championship Wrestling to become essentially the only wrestling entertainment that could be consumed by the American public.
The trade embargo with China ended in 1971 which coincidentally was the same year Starbucks was founded. Unsurprisingly, the largest coffee distributor in US and the world, is also the largest purveyor of tea in the US. In 2005, Total Nonstop Action ( aka TNA or Impact Wrestling) was the first wrestling show to gain a cable spot and on January 4, 2010 went head to head with the now named World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly WWF). For the first time in nearly nine years, the American public had options in the types of wrestling they consumed. Between TNA and international companies like Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide and New Japan Pro-Wrestling finding air time in the US, American audiences were exposed to a wider array of styles and techniques than ever before. So the trade embargo certainly hindered the American consumption of tea and it became the job of major companies like Starbucks to introduce the US to tea outside the simple black tea bags to which we had grown accustomed. In 2006, Starbucks introduced a new drink: the matcha latte. (Now there are certainly people out there that will argue about the credibility of Starbucks’ matcha and how much sugar is blended into the tea powder. I get it; it’s not traditional, but with over 8791 Starbucks stores, you have to admit, that’s a lot of exposure for Matcha.)
So thus far we have really only talked about hot tea and I would be remiss to leave out iced tea. Did you know that 85% of tea consumed in America is actually iced tea? The oldest printed recipe for iced tea date backs to 1879, in a cookbook called Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Marion Cabell Tyree. This recipe is also considered to be the origin of Sweet Tea in the South and originally called for the use of green tea. Although served at the 1893 World Fair in Chicago, it wasn’t until the 1904 World’s Fair in St.Louis when Richard Blechyden offered the drink in an act of desperation to fair goers. Being brutally hot in, Richard found few people that wanted to drink his boiling hot beverage and decided to serve it chilled. Blechynden took his tea, filled several bottles, and then placed them upside down – thus making the tea flow down through iced pipes. Flashing forward to the 1920’s and Prohibition, Americans were looking for alternatives to beer, wine, and alcohol which helped iced tea’s rise in popularity. Perhaps I’m getting a little lost in trying to tie in pro wrestling but I can’t help but think of the bootleggers illegal booze into the country and be reminded of trading VHS tapes of wrestling promotions like Extreme Championship Wrestling or New Japan when all we could get on television was World Wrestling Entertainment. Oh well.
I hope this whole thing made some sort of sense to you, dear reader. Maybe it even inspired one or two of you to watch some pro wrestling while drinking an iced tea. I have recently returned to being an avid wrestling fan after many years away. I think All Elite Wrestling (tune in Wednesday nights 8pm on TNT network) is a revolutionary group of wrestlers changing the business and trying to wrest power back from King George....er...Vince McMahon’s WWE. I hope this gave you some insight into the history of tea here in America, I am sure I left some stuff out. Thank you for reading.
コメント