| The history of tea can be traced back 5,000 years
when the legendary Chinese emperor, Shen Nong discovered this
popular drink. The story of his discovery is surprisingly similar
to how Isaac Newton discovered the Law of Gravity. Legend has it
that one summer day, Shen Nong visited a distant region of his
realm and while he rested under a tree with his retinue, servants
boiled water for them to drink. A few dried leaves from the tree
coincidentally fell into the boiling water - out of curiosity Shen
Nong drank the fragrant brown water. The flavor was so delicious
that he knew immediately what to do - a little like the apple
falling on Newton's head.
There is another account about the discovery of tea and it also
centers on Shen Nong. Apart from being an emperor, Shen Nong is
also said to have been the first medical practitioner. He taught
people how to cure their diseases and collected his prescriptions
in a book called the Materia Medica of Shen Nong. He was believed
to have tasted hundreds of the local herbs. Once while
experimenting, he ate a golden-green colored herb and died of its
poison. Luckily the spot he died on was right under the tea tree,
and coincidentally the water dripping down from the tea tree fell
into his mouth. The water had flowed over the tealeaves and
absorbed some of their healing power - transforming into an elixir
of life. Fortunately Shen Nong was restored to life when the water
entered his body.
Tea drinking may have started with an emperor, but the monks
weren't far behind. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties
(317-589 AD), when Buddhism was popular in China, meditating monks
would drink tea to keep themselves awake. From the Buddhist
temples, the cultivation and drinking of tea gradually became
widespread. By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-908 AD), tea
drinking had become fashionable among scholars and poets who would
often employ tea as a theme in their writing. During this period
The Book of Tea was written by Lu Yu and was the world's first
thesis on the art of tea! Later, people even called Lu Yu the
"God of Tea."
Of course the tea we use these days isn't simply dried leaves
that fall from trees and even if tea does have a medical value -
resurrecting the dead probably isn't one of them. However, a few
things do seem clear from the stories - the beginning of tea is
closely related to the legendary Shen Nong, tea was recognized
very early on as a beneficial plant, and there is little question
that China was the first nation in the world to cultivate and
drink tea. Actually, it was only in the latter half of the 16th
century that Chinese tealeaves were taken to Europe .
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