Today almost everybody knows how to make a cup of tea, but things were not like that 5000 years ago when tea had been first discovered in China.
The legend says that the tea has been discovered one sunny autumn afternoon, when the Emperor of South China was having his lunch. He was outside his garden with his friends and some dry leaves felt into his cup of hot water that was on the table. He drank the liquid and found the taste very pleasant and decided to keep from that day on all the dry leaves that felt from the trees.He enjoyed his first cup of tea.
After a while, tea came into the West part as well, but only the green tea was use
d in the beginning. This was very expensive and it was a real luxury having it in your house. Most important, only few honorable families knew how to make a cup of tea.
Slowly the tea came into France, Italy and Spain, but again, it was only the rich people who had access to the tea leaves.
The British started to bring the tea cultivation into India, as they had proper soil and wanting to make more money. The real problem was that nobody knew what they had to do with the tea leaves after picking them up, except in China. The legends say that a merchandiser disguised himself as a Chinese sales person went and lived in China for a while and learnt how to process the tea leaves.
They used to say that drinking a cup of tea is better than wine because is stimulating the mind and moreover, better than plain water because of it benefits. But this is true even today. We all know how important tea is to our diet, to our immune system and the list could just go on. We should drink at least one cup of tea a day. You can read more on drinking tea’s benefits on our next articles.
As I have already mentioned earlier, the honor of having a cup of tea with your friends, in late afternoons was only for the rich people. It was only at the end of the 18th century when tea became accessible for the rest of the population and even then it was still expensive. People would afford to drink one cup of tea every other week.
Nowadays, almost everybody can afford a cup of tea now and then, we got tea bags and it is even easier when it comes to preparing it.
Back in the past, drinking tea was something so luxurious that makes me become melancholic each time I am having my cup of tea. I like when I can stop for half an hour from the rush of the day and feel like I am an important rich and respectful person from the Victorian Period.
Enjoy your visit on this site while having your favorite cup of tea!