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Gunpowder: Chinese
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Gunpowder tea is probably the best-known variety of Chinese green tea, coming mainly from the Ning Bo region. The tea comes rolled up into little balls to preserve freshness; these are said to resemble old-fashioned gunpowder pellets. This is the reason the tea is known as gunpowder green, but the name could just as easily have come from the way the pellets explode to many times their dried size in hot water. Gunpowder tea is ... known as pearl tea, but the writeups in that node seem to be talking about something else entirely.
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Gunpowder was used as a propellant for rockets, and to propel shot in cannons and Naval guns. During the late 14th and early 15th centuries, Chinese gunpowder technology spread to the whole of Southeast Asia via both the overland and maritime routes, long before the arrival of European firearms. The impact of Chinese firearms on northern mainland Southeast Asia in terms of warfare and territorial expansion was profound.
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The Chinese began experimenting with the gunpowder filled tubes. At some point, they attached bamboo tubes to arrows and launched them with bows. Soon they discovered that these gunpowder tubes could launch themselves just by the power produced from the escaping gas. The true rocket was born.
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Like all unroasted green teas, gunpowder tea is mildly astringent with a grassy sort of flavour; many gunpowder teas ... have a slightly peppery taste, and some are also a little smoky. Like most Chinese green teas, gunpowder tea in the cup is really more yellow than green. Chinese greens in general also taste a little different from their grass-hued Japanese counterparts, but it's hard to describe just how. Somehow they just don't taste quite as green, and they don't have that hint of sea air which is common to so much Japanese food and drink.
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The Chinese invented the gunpowder in around the seventh and the eighth centuries. Early in the Tang dynasty, there were ancient books' records of gunpowder making. This influential invention was invented accidentally by the Daoist alchemists.
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