A cup of tea can give a great relief to us.
The Chinese have been consumers of tea since a very long time. It is said that tea was invented accidentally by Shen Nong, who was the mythical emperor of China around 2700 BC. They have been cultivating tea in China for the past 1800 years. Here is a brief history of tea in China.
How tea drinking began
Tea was first consumed after that in Japan during the reign of the Tang dynasty. During the 1600s, tea arrived in Europe. It was around the same time coffee was exported by Africa. Coffee found more flavour as compared to tea in the 17th Century. However, the British had found that they were lacking in coffee growing areas as compared to the other countries. The then government of Britain encouraged the sale of tea. Russia and Britain then became the leading fans of tea around the world.
Tea was a luxury
Tea was considered a luxury in Britain back in the day when it had to import it. In fact, it was imported since it was said to have some medicinal properties. The rich people were the only ones who had it back then and everyone else had wanted to possess it. They got it within a matter of a century. The need to export teas had spurred the shipping technologies inadvertently.
Green tea was originally imported by Europe. It was, however, easy to adulterate tea using the plants that were used for other purposes. In America, people were originally fans of tea, but the Boston Tea Party changed all that. The Opium Wars were triggered off by the Britishers’ love for drinking tea. The British had paid the Chinese so much money for importing tea that they finally had almost nothing left with them to offer the Chinese in return for tea.
