Tea: A Global History

When the wild plant was discovered by the British in Assam in north-eastern India in the early nineteenth century some botanists thought that a new species had been found and named the plant Thea assamica.

Some sources claim that tea originally grew wild in Assam and, according to another legend, the Buddhist scholar Wu Li Zhen, who had been studying in India, returned to China around   with seven tea plants which he planted on Meng mountain in Sichuan.

In Chinese legend, the story of tea begins with Emperor Shen Nong (‒ ), also known as the Divine Healer, the Divine Husbandman and the Divine Cultivator. The Emperor decreed that to preserve their health his subjects must boil water before drinking it. One day while he was boiling water some leaves, blown by the wind, accidentally fell into the pot.

At first mainly valued for its health benefits, drinking tea was later discovered by Buddhists to be an effective way of keeping awake during long hours of meditation.

Variations passed into other languages, becoming chai in India, Afghanistan, Persia, Russia and Turkish and shai in Arabic.

The Mandarin word for tea is cha, which became ch’a (pronounced tcha) in Cantonese.

The Dutch, who were the first to import tea into Europe from the port of Amoy in Fujian Province, called it thee, which became ‘tea’ in English.

The word tea comes from the Chinese Amoy word t’e, pronounced tay.

in the world after water.

Tea, made from the dried leaves of the evergreen shrub Camellia sinensis infused in boiling water, is consumed by millions across the world. It is the second most popular beverage