According to legend, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung discovered tea in 2737 B.C. Being a creative scientist, he decreed that drinking water be boiled as a hygenic precaution. The dried leaves from a nearby bush accidentally fell into the pot, creating a brown infusion. The emperor drank the new liquid out of curiosity and found it highly refreshing. Shen Nung reported that the drink gave him, "Vigour of the body, contentment of the mind, and determination of purpose". This discovery would later cause sensations around the world.

The 'Father of Tea' in Japan was a Buddhist priest by the name of Yensai. Having spent some time meditating in China, he returned with the tea seeds. Tea was then associated with Zen Buddhism in Japan and resulted in its elevation to an art form in the shape of the elaborately beautiful Japanese Tea Ceremony, which is now practiced in tea rooms throughout the world.

Tea continued to travel throughout the Orient but only arrived in Europe in the early 17th century and was so expensive that it was kept as a rich man’s beverage; only royalty and aristocratic cliques could enjoy it. As the amount of tea imported increased, so the price dropped and eventually it became affordable to the masses. The first samples of tea only reached England between 1652 and 1654 and it quickly became popular enough to replace ale as the national drink. The brewing of pure, orthodox leaf tea was rapidly replaced in the 1960s with the mass production of tea in the teabag, which was in itself a response to instant coffee (the origins of the teabag can be traced to accidental events in packaging by the tea merchant Thomas Sullivan in 1908 in New York). It was now possible to make a much faster infusion. However, this also transformed the authentic taste and nature of the drink.

Today we drink virtually the same tea as that of the Emperor Shen Nung and we drink lots of it. Ireland has the highest per capita tea consumption in the world at 4 cups per person per day, with many drinking more than 6 cups per day and may it long continue!

For a more detailed synopsis go to - Wikipedia