Reading — 2026 Jan–Apr Recall Set 61

The story of tea begins in China. According to legend, in 2737 BC the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water, when some leaves from the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea. It is impossible to know whether there is any truth in this story, but tea-drinking certainly became established in China many centuries before it had even been heard of in the West. Containers for tea have been found in tombs dating from the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), but it was under the Tang Dynasty (618–906 AD) that tea became firmly established as the national drink of China. It became such a favourite that during the late eighth century a writer called Lu Yu wrote the first book entirely about tea, the Ch’a Ching, or Tea Classic. It was shortly after this that tea was first introduced to Japan, by Japanese Buddhist monks who had travelled to China to study. Tea received almost instant imperial sponsorship and spread rapidly from the royal court and monasteries to the other sections of Japanese society. So at this stage in the history of tea, Europe was rather lagging behind. In the latter half of the sixteenth century there are the first brief mentions of tea as a drink among Europeans, mostly from Portuguese who were living in the East as traders and missionaries. But although some of these individuals may have brought back samples of tea to their native country, it was not the Portuguese who were the first to ship back tea as a commercial import. This was done by the Dutch, who in the last years of the sixteenth century began to encroach on Portuguese trading routes in the East. By the turn of the century they had established a trading post on the island of Java, and it was via Java that in 1606 the first consignment of tea was shipped from China to Holland. Tea soon became a fashionable drink among the Dutch, and from there spread to other countries in continental western Europe, but because of its high price it remained a drink for the wealthy. Britain, always a little suspicious of continental trends, had yet to become the nation of tea-drinkers that it is today. Starting in 1600, the British East India Company had a monopoly on importing goods from outside Europe, and it is likely that sailors on these ships brought tea home as gifts. The first coffee-house had been established in London in 1652, and tea was still somewhat unfamiliar to most readers, so it is fair to assume that the drink was still something of a curiosity. Gradually, it became a popular drink in coffee-houses, which were as much locations for the transaction of business as they were for relaxation or pleasure. They were, though, the preserve of middle- and upper-class men; women drank tea in their own homes, and as yet tea was still too expensive to be widespread among the working classes. In part, its high price was due to a punitive system of taxation. One unforeseen consequence of the taxation of tea was the growth of methods to avoid taxation—smuggling and adulteration. By the eighteenth century many Britons wanted to drink tea but could not afford the high prices, and their enthusiasm for the drink was matched by the enthusiasm of criminal gangs to smuggle it in. What began as a small-time illegal trade, selling a few pounds of tea to personal contacts, developed by the late eighteenth century into an astonishing organised-crime network, perhaps importing as much as seven million lb annually, compared to a legal import of five million lb! Worse for the drinkers was that taxation also encouraged the adulteration of tea, particularly of smuggled tea which was not quality-controlled through customs and excise. Leaves from other plants, or leaves which had already been brewed and then dried, were added to tea leaves. By 1784, the government realised that enough was enough, and that heavy taxation was creating more problems than it was worth. The new Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, slashed the tax from 119 per cent to 12.5 per cent. Suddenly legal tea was affordable, and smuggling stopped virtually overnight. Another great impetus to tea-drinking resulted from the end of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade with China, in 1834. Before that date, China was the country of origin of the vast majority of the tea imported to Britain, but the end of its monopoly stimulated the East India Company to consider growing tea outside China. India had always been the centre of the Company’s operations, which led to the increased cultivation of tea in India, beginning in Assam. There were a few false starts, including the destruction by cattle of one of the earliest tea nurseries, but by 1888 British tea imports from India were for the first time greater than those from China. The end of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade with China also had another result, which was more dramatic though less important in the long term: it ushered in the era of the tea clippers. While the Company had had the monopoly on trade, there was no rush to bring the tea from China to Britain, but after 1834 the tea trade became a virtual free-for-all. Individual merchants and sea-captains with their own ships raced to bring home the tea and make the most money, using fast new clippers which had sleek lines, tall masts and huge sails. In particular, there was competition between British and American merchants, leading to the famous clipper races of the 1860s. But these races soon came to an end with the opening of the Suez Canal, which made the trade routes to China viable for steamships for the first time.

A Velcro, now commonly used instead of buttons and zippers, is probably the most famous example of ‘biomimicry’, where technologists turn to nature for inspiration. In 1948, scientist Georges de Mestral was walking through long grass when he noticed that dozens of seeds had attached themselves to his trousers. Under a microscope, de Mestral noted the hook-and-loop system the seed cases used to stick so firmly, and was inspired. US biologist Janine Benyus wrote a book on the subject called Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Published in 1997, the book set off the current wave of technology modelled on nature. According to Benyus, our ancestors were practised in the art of biomimicry. ‘I think it’s an old impulse for humans to take their cues from other organisms,’ she says, referring to African tribes that found edible plants by observing the dining habits of chimpanzees. But lately we’ve become more focused on what we can make ourselves. Benyus thinks our drift away from nature started with the advent of agriculture: ‘When we broke free from the challenges of hunting and gathering and learnt to stock our cupboards, we fooled ourselves into believing that we didn’t need other organisms at all,’ she says. The scientific, industrial, petrochemical and genetic engineering revolutions have repeatedly reinforced the idea that we are liberated from biological constraints. In recent years, however, the illusion that we are independent of nature has been shattered by the spectre of global warming and the looming end to fossil fuel supplies. Since few of us would be willing to forgo the products and services we’ve grown accustomed to – food, water, shelter, the conveniences that modern technology brings – the challenge is to meet the complex demands of civilisation within the bounds of sustainability. ‘Nature has learnt to fly, live in the depths of the ocean and craft miracle materials,’ writes Benyus. ‘Living creatures have done everything we want to do, without guzzling fossil fuel or polluting the planet. What better models could there be?’ There are no better models, according to Tim Finnigan, a marine engineer at the University of Sydney. In his quest to harness the world’s waves and tides for renewable energy more efficiently, Finnigan has taken his cues from aquatic life. With their streamlined bodies and stiff, high tail fins, sharks convert up to 90 per cent of their body energy into forward thrust. Inspired by such efficient hydrodynamics, but turning the theory on its head, Finnigan designed his tidal stream generator: an 18-metre-long biomimetic shark tail with a fin spanning 15 metres. ‘Rather than have a body moving through a stationary fluid, we have fluid that’s moving past a stationary body,’ says Finnigan. Then there’s Finnigan’s biomimetic forest of giant seaweed. ‘As a diver I’ve looked at the way motions occur under water in the presence of waves,’ he says. ‘I see plants that move quite dramatically and yet they never seem to be pulled out, even in the most dramatic waves.’ The trouble with conventional designs, according to Finnigan, is that they’re made to stand rigidly against the power of the ocean. ‘The structures we try to build in the ocean just never end up being strong enough to survive out there,’ says Finnigan. In the manner of aquatic plants and animals, Finnigan’s designs respond to changing current or wave conditions by reorienting to maximise energy capture. And in severe weather, to avoid a battering, his wave energy generator will lie flat against the ocean floor. While conventional architects were designing buildings dependent on expensive air conditioning systems, when Mick Pearce tried to do the same, he struck a problem. ‘We were building office blocks for a client in Zimbabwe and we ran out of funds. So we looked for ways to make a building without traditional air conditioning.’ One day, driving through the grasslands, he saw a large mound created by termites, the ant-like insect common in Africa. He noticed that air entering at the base of the mound was mixed with water drawn from subterranean levels by the termites, causing evaporative cooling. Pearce wanted to reproduce this principle but he needed an alternative system, and in his building massive fans were employed at the base of the structure to lower the temperature of the circulating air. Pearce’s termite-inspired cooling system cut energy use to 10 per cent of a similar air-conditioned building. Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants use energy from the sun to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen. Plants can manage it with humbling ease. But, as the 40 researchers from 11 institutes who have collaborated to form the Australian Artificial Photosynthesis Network have realised, it is very complex. However, there is one aspect working in our favour. In nature, environmental variables like temperature, carbon dioxide and light availability limit the rate of photosynthesis. In a laboratory these variables can be optimized. ‘We don’t have to cope with drought or frost. We can work with a highly controlled, specified set of conditions,’ says Tom Collings, the group’s spokesman.

One consequence of population mobility is an increasing diversity within schools. To illustrate, in the city of Toronto in Canada, 58% of kindergarten pupils come from homes where English is not the usual language of communication. Schools in Europe and North America have experienced this diversity for years, and educational policies and practices vary widely between countries and even within countries. Some political parties and groups search for ways to solve the problem of diverse communities and their integration in schools and society. However, they see few positive consequences for the host society and worry that this diversity threatens the identity of the host society. Consequently, they promote unfortunate educational policies that will make the “problem” disappear. If students retain their culture and language, they are viewed as less capable of identifying with the mainstream culture and learning the mainstream language of the society. The challenge for educators and policy-makers is to shape the evolution of national identity in such a way that the rights of all citizens (including school children) are respected, and the cultural, linguistic, and economic resources of the nation are maximised. To waste the resources of the nation by discouraging children from developing their mother tongues is quite simply unintelligent from the point of view of national self-interest. A first step in providing an appropriate education for culturally and linguistically diverse children is to examine what the existing research says about the role of children’s mother tongues in their educational development. In fact, the research is very clear. When children continue to develop their abilities in two or more languages throughout their primary school, they gain a deeper understanding of language and how to use it effectively. They have more practice in processing language, especially when they develop literacy in both. More than 150 research studies conducted during the past 25 years strongly support what Goethe, the famous eighteenth-century German philosopher, once said: the person who knows only one language does not truly know that language. Research suggests that bilingual children may also develop more flexibility in their thinking as a result of processing information through two different languages. The level of development of children’s mother tongue is a strong predictor of their second language development. Children who come to school with a solid foundation in their mother tongue develop stronger literacy abilities in the school language. When parents and other caregivers (e.g., grandparents) are able to spend time with their children and tell stories or discuss issues with them in a way that develops their mother tongue, children come to school well-prepared to learn the school language and succeed educationally. Children’s knowledge and skills transfer across languages from the mother tongue to the school language. Transfer across languages can be two-way: both languages nurture each other when the educational environment permits children access to both languages. Some educators and parents are suspicious of mother tongue-based teaching programs because they worry that they take time away from the majority language. For example, in a bilingual program when 50% of the time is spent teaching through children’s home language and 50% through the majority language, surely children won’t progress as far in the latter? One of the most strongly established findings of educational research, however, is that well-implemented bilingual programs can promote literacy and subject-matter knowledge in a minority language without any negative effects on children’s development in the majority language. Within Europe, the Foyer program in Belgium, which develops children’s speaking and literacy abilities in three languages (their mother tongue, Dutch and French), most clearly illustrates the benefits of bilingual and trilingual education (see Cummins, 2000). It is easy to understand how this happens. When children are learning through a minority language, they are learning concepts and intellectual skills too. Pupils who know how to tell the time in their mother tongue understand the concept of telling time. In order to tell time in the majority language, they do not need to re-learn the concept. Similarly, at more advanced stages, there is transfer across languages in other skills such as knowing how to distinguish the main idea from the supporting details of a written passage or story, and distinguishing fact from opinion. Studies of secondary school pupils are providing interesting findings in this area, and it would be worth extending this research. Many people marvel at how quickly bilingual children seem to “pick up” conversational skills in the majority language at school (although it takes much longer for them to catch up with native speakers in academic language skills). However, educators are often much less aware of how quickly children can lose their ability to use their mother tongue, even in the home context. The extent and rapidity of language loss will vary according to the concentration of families from a particular linguistic group in the neighborhood. Where the mother tongue is used extensively in the community, then language loss among young children will be less. However, where language communities are not concentrated in particular neighborhoods, children can lose their ability to communicate in their mother tongue within 2–3 years of starting school. They may retain receptive skills in the language but they will use the majority language in speaking with their peers and siblings and in responding to their parents. By the time children become adolescents, the linguistic division between parents and children has become an emotional chasm. Pupils frequently become alienated from the cultures of both home and school with predictable results.