Tea Time

The History of Tea

We can only guess how humans first discovered the beneficial effects of tea. It likely happened a long time ago in distant China. However, there are two ancient Chinese legends, though their truth is purely speculative.

In the first, a certain Chinese emperor was boiling a pot of water over a fire during his travels. A few leaves from a nearby tea plant "accidentally" blew into the pot. The emperor was surprised by the delicious and invigorating drink that resulted from this "accident." The second famous story tells of a Buddhist monk who fell asleep during meditation. This angered him so much that he cut off his own eyelids and threw them away. Some time later, he was amazed to find a remarkable shrub growing where he had discarded his eyelids, with leaves that warded off fatigue.

So, how did tea end up in our cups? Most likely by chance. Perhaps the wind didn't blow a tea leaf into boiling water for us, but humanity has spent centuries gathering almost everything nature has to offer. The tea plant itself is one of the oldest cultivated plants. The naturalist Candolle declared the tea plant to be at least 5,000 years old. Other sources push this number to 10,000 years.

It is well known that the golden age for tea was the Chinese Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD), during which writers and scholars fell in love with the drink. Tea then began to be exported to other countries, reaching Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, and eventually Russia and the Arab world. It arrived in Europe in 1610, and by the end of the 17th century, it was a widespread drink among the aristocracy.

Read this and much more about tea in: Everything about tea for tea lovers