'A HISTORY OF...'//'TEA PRESENTATION'//OUGD504-SUMMER

This is the presentation I put together to present for our crit:

I felt this is a subject that can develop a wide depth of research, from the history of tea/ tea culture to the success of its produce.  The significance of tea differs within each culture which I thought would be interesting to look into.

These are some of the categories I looked into whilst researching

-tea cultre is China, Japan, Russia and the UK

-statistics facts and figures about tea consumption

-the history of tea, where it was discovered and how it has come to be such  a popular beverage 

-I looked into Twinings and their history etc.

-Tassology, this is a fortune telling method used with tea leaves

For my secondary research I found the website Tea council Uk very useful, it had a lot of information about the history of tea and were it originated from…

According to legend, in 2737 BC, a 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.  Its impossible to know if that story is true but tea drinking became established centuries ago.   it is the second most consumed beverage in the world, after water.  I also touched on the subject tea v's coffee, the popularity of coffee has increased but tea consumption equals more than coffee, soft drinks and alcohol combined.  China consumes the most tea in the world, in 2010 china consumed tea leaves equal in weight to 26 titanics.

I got in contact with Twinings to ask if they could send me anything to help further my research or if there was anywhere I could visit, the only place they said was the main store on the Strand which had some antique tea caddies and old tea packaging in glass cabinets which were good for photographing for primary research.  The tea house and tea palace were both tea shops in covent garden that helped when trying to find primary research.  i visited China town to try and get a bit more of an insight into the chinese the culture, i managed to find a couple of photographs but I didn't find anything relevant to tea culture.  I also wrote to tetleys to see if they could send me any further information on their tea, they sent me a print out booklet on the process of growing and blending tea and the various countries its produced in which was helpful in terms of seeing the development of production.

these are some photographs I took whilst looking around various tea shops and china town, I've used a couple of these in my final outcome

I firstly started of wanting to make a poster with interesting tea facts, my original idea was to use tea bags and transfer letraset onto them with interesting facts and scan them in, however it didn't work as well as I wanted it to, and the idea seemed better than the finished result.  I then decided to create a set of postcards with information about chinese and japanese tea culture and ceremonies, the health benefits of tea and general tea facts, i thought they could possibly work as a series that you get free with a box of tea bags..

81 per cent of British adults drink tea but the number is declining amongst young people..possibly some kind of light hearted campaign to bring tea culture back to the younger generation.

THIS WAS THE FEEDBACK I GOT FROM MY PRESENTATION GROUP:

We had to do our presentation about the subject matter we looked into over summer to a group of five people, this was the feedback:

• good statistical research
• good photography
• very good experimenting 
• loads of research
• very good final outcome
• clearly has done the research and knows the facts
• explored different ways of researching
• good designs/ good ideas
• interesting facts
• nice finals
• plenty of information
• I love tea
• interesting facts
• lots of information
• well informed and rehearsed
• nice primary research
• final outcome looks very well informed