The History of Tea

There are many legends and myths that lead us to the origin of tea, but the true history of tea and the best known legend tells that its origin dates back 5000 years in China when Emperor Sheng Nong, a ruler art lover And science and known as the Divine Healer, always very concerned about the epidemics that devastated the Middle Kingdom, issued an edict that required all people to boil the water before consuming it.

The History of Green Tea

One day the Emperor, who was walking in his gardens, asked his servants to boil water and take him to where he would rest under the shade of a tree. While waiting for the water to cool, some leaves from some shrubs fell into his glass, giving the water a brownish hue.

The Emperor decided to taste, surprising himself with the pleasant taste. From that moment he became adept at tea, inducing his taste to his people.

History of green tea as each legend or myth usually have some part of the truth, this will be no exception. It is known that the origin of the tea goes back to the period immediately before the rise of the T’ang Dynasty to power, between years 618 and 906.

This Dynasty also saw the diffusion of a drink made by the Buddhist monks. This drink, coming from the Himalayas, came from the tea bush, scientific name Camellia Sinensis, which grew in the wild in this Asian ridge.

According to the reports of the Japanese Buddhist monk Ennin, during a trip to the Middle Kingdom, around the ninth century, tea was already part of the habits of the Chinese. At the same time, a Chinese Buddhist monk named Lu Yu wrote the first great book on tea, called Ch’a Ching, which describes the cultivation methods and their preparation used in the Empire.It was then that tea began to advance to the West, through Central Asia and Russia. However, it was only when the Portuguese arrived in the East at the end of the 15th century that tea was truly known.

At that time, Portuguese ships brought cargoes of tea to the port of Lisbon, where most cargo was then re-exported to Holland and France.

Portugal quickly lost the monopoly of this trade, despite having been a Portuguese Jesuit priest the first European to write about tea. In the seventeenth century, the fleet of the Dutch was very powerful, giving them an advantage. Enjoy for drinking green tea.