The Legendary origins of Tea

Once upon a time in the misty distant past the second of China's emperors ruled Asia. He was a sage named Shen Nong who understood all manner of plants and their uses. The Chinese say it was Shen Nong who first taught them agriculture and herbal medicine and - of equal importance in their eyes - how to make tea.

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Pilgrimage to the Holy Land of Tea:  

An account by James Norwood Pratt, author of The Tea Lover's Treasury. (reprinted from Freshcup magazine's TEA ALMANAC 2001) Whoever said "the past is not dead it's not even past" could have been speaking of tea history, for the history of tea lives on in the cups we drink every day. A taste that's been known sometimes for centuries comes back to life.

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Introduction from "Reading Tea Leaves"

The main problem with Darjeeling tea is quantity: there will never be enough to satisfy demand. The region is small and produces much less per acre than Assam, for instance. It is colder and higher, growth is slow, and the crop devilishly difficult to harvest. Even in a good year production amounts to only twenty two million pounds or so, less than one percent of all the tea India produces.

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Wine and Tea

"WHO CAN CALL TEA BITTER? IT IS SWEET AS (THE HERB) SHEPHERD'S PURSE," remarked the Sage Confucius in the earliest known instance of critical tea appreciation. Writing some 2,500 years later it seems strange to be using almost the same word for tea that Confucius did.

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