The history of tea spreads across multiple cultures over the span of thousands of years. With the tea plant Camellia sinensis native to East Asia and probably originating in the borderlands of southwestern China and northern Myanmar.[1][2][3] One of the earliest accounts of tea drinking is dated back to China's Shang dynasty, in which tea was consumed as a medicinal drink.[4] An early credible record of tea drinking dates to the 3rd century AD, in a medical text written by Chinese physician Hua Tuo.[5] It first became known to the western world through Portuguese priests and merchants in China during the early 16th century.[6] Drinking tea became popular in Britain during the 17th century. The British introduced commercial tea production to British India, in order to compete with the Chinese monopoly on tea by stealing green tea leaves from China, transporting them by train/road, resulting in them being fermented and thought fermented tea is the tea drunk in China. Hence the tea drank in the West is mostly fermented and not green fresh tea. [7]
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^Mary Lou Heiss; Robert J. Heiss. The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide. Camellia sinensis originated in southeast Asia, specifically around the intersection of 29th parallel and 98th meridian, the point of confluence of the lands of southwest China and Tibet, north Myanmar, and northeast India, citing Mondal (2007) p. 519
^Heiss & Heiss 2007, pp. 6–7.
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