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Tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. People pick the leaves off the plant. They set the leaves to dry. The tea leaves are ready when all the water from the leaves is evaporated. There are many ways to prepare the leaves before making the tea drink. Some tea leaves are left open to the air before they are dried. This makes the leaves darker. They will taste stronger. Some people mix tea leaves with flowers, oils, and other plants to give teas different tastes. The people who originally discovered tea developed these methods many years ago.
The story of tea begins in China. Chinese history says that over 5,000 years ago, Chinese emperor Shen Nung discovered tea. Stories say that a dry leaf from the tea plant fell into the emperor’s cup of hot water. The emperor saw that his water turned dark. He tasted the water and liked it. This was the first cup of tea.
However it started, tea became very popular in China. People believed that tea was healthy. People in China also created many different ways to prepare tea. In fact, a man named Lu Yu wrote a book just about tea, late in the eighth century.
Soon after this, tea travelled to Japan. Japanese Buddhist priests travelled to China. And they brought tea back with them. In Japan, people developed special ceremonies to serve tea. Serving tea became a new form of art. It was most common among wealthy people.
Tea was an important part of both Chinese and Japanese culture. It had travelled to other Asian countries too. But tea had not yet travelled anywhere else in the world. Finally, in the late 1500s, Portuguese travellers brought small amounts of tea back to Europe. Portugal was one of the first European countries to trade with China. Portugal worked with the Netherlands to move the tea through Europe. Dutch ships took tea to France and other countries on the Baltic Sea.
Only very wealthy people had enough money to drink tea in Europe. It took many months to transport the tea from Asia. And only a limited amount was transported. But more countries started to trade with China. They also brought tea back to Europe. Prices became lower, and more people could drink tea.
Today, England is the European country most known for tea. British traders started shipping tea to England in the late 1600s. Tea trade had become a very profitable business. England imported about 18,000 kilograms of tea a year in 1699. Ten years later, the country imported six times that amount of tea!
British colonists also brought tea wherever they settled. Tea became very important in India. It is still a very important crop there. And Indian tea is known around the world.
Tea played an important part in one British colony you might know. This colony is now known as the United States of America. England sent tea to America. But as time went on, England raised the taxes on the tea and other goods it sent. The people living in the colonies did not like these taxes. To protest the high taxes, a group of colonists took a large shipment of tea and threw it into the ocean. Today, this event is known as “The Boston Tea Party”. It was one of the most important events in the American Revolution.
Tea has also changed over many years. In the past, people drank tea by putting the leaves directly into the water. But around 1908, an American inventor developed a new method – tea bags. Thomas Sullivan put the tea in a small silk bag. This bag of tea could be put directly into the hot water.
At first people, in Britain did not like tea bags. But during World War II, people could not get their normal tea. So they had to use tea bags. Today most tea bags are made of paper. And they are very popular in many parts of the world.
Today, people on every continent drink tea. But people in different places drink tea differently. In the United Kingdom, tea became part of the daily meal.
Around the world, people boil plants and flowers to make drinks similar to tea. These are called tisanes. A tisane is any drink made from hot water and any plant material, except from the tea plant. They are also often called herbal teas.
The primary types of tea are black tea, green tea, white tea, oolong tea, pu-erh tea, purple tea, and herbal infusions.
Green tea is cultivated under the sun, while matcha tea is shade-grown in the three weeks before it is harvested. Green tea grows dull green with a brownish tone, and matcha tea grows a vibrant green color. The shade increases the chlorophyll levels in the leaves that turn matcha its bright color.