Tea today is the result of nearly 3000 years of history and culture.

Though myth and lore shrouds the true origins of tea, often supposing a divine source, most current research has traced its origin to the Himalayan foothills. This region includes Assam of northwestern India, northern areas of Burma (Myanmar), Thailand and Vietnam, and southwest China. Tea is still cultivated in the area by local tribes, though they extract its benefits through chewing the preserved leaves rather than drinking infusions of the plant.

China was the first to have an established culture of tea crafting and drinking. The first recorded history of tea as a brewed beverage appeared in 59 B.C.E., in what is now the Chinese province of Sichuan.

From the province of Sichuan, the habit of drinking tea spread further eastward through China by way of Buddhist and Taoist monks, who favored the plant for its gently stimulating properties which aided meditation.

By the Tang Dynasty (7th -10th century), tea had gained a firm hold over the Chinese people - it had become a daily necessity. This era gave birth to the world’s first treatise on tea, Lu Yu’s Cha Ching (Classic of Tea).

The economic prosperity of the following Song dynasty (10th-13th century) brought on a flourishing of tea culture, with further developments in types of teas, tea wares, styles of brewing and drinking, and poetry and literature about tea. At this time, China began to trade tea with neighboring countries for other goods and currency, primarily horses.

Still, as the only country to cultivate the plant for drinking, China held a firm monopoly.

With increase in trade, the custom of tea drinking radiated out from China -first to Japan through Buddhist monks, then by land through the Silk Road to Tibet, Mongolia, Central Asia and Iran and later to Russia and Eastern Europe. Tea spread to the rest of the world by sea through the British and Dutch: Western Europe, North and South America, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Morocco, and East Africa.

This final spread, of course, was not without turmoil –it took the discovery of an Assamese subspecies in India and the introduction of highly addictive opium by the British Empire to undermine China’s long monopoly of the prized tea plant.

All told, from the first recorded brewing of the leaves to today, the history of tea spans over two thousand years. Tea is old.

Today, tea remains the world’s most popular beverage apart from water. Diverse tea cultures thrive around the globe, with traditions ranging from simple to elaborate. To satiate this demand for tea, it is now cultivated in many places, including much of Asia, Africa, New Zealand, and South America.