Tea: A Global History

When the wild plant was discovered by the British in Assam in north-eastern India in the early nineteenth century some botanists thought that a new species had been found and named the plant Thea assamica.

Some sources claim that tea originally grew wild in Assam and, according to another legend, the Buddhist scholar Wu Li Zhen, who had been studying in India, returned to China around   with seven tea plants which he planted on Meng mountain in Sichuan.

In Chinese legend, the story of tea begins with Emperor Shen Nong (‒ ), also known as the Divine Healer, the Divine Husbandman and the Divine Cultivator. The Emperor decreed that to preserve their health his subjects must boil water before drinking it. One day while he was boiling water some leaves, blown by the wind, accidentally fell into the pot.