Tea is so much a part of Chinese culture that Chinese life without it is hard to
imagine. Tea is quintessentially Chinese. Though there have been changes in
styles for tea over the centuries, its place in Chinese life has remained essentially
the same, even in the modern world.

The culture that has grown up around tea is the embodiment of politeness,
and of a desire to share with others. A Chinese farmer has his tea every day if
he can afford it, and the muddiest of the "old muddylegs" serves it to a guest
with the politeness of a courtier.

This beverage is one of China's gifts to the world. The tea plant, a member
of the camellia family (Camellia sinensis), is native to the China-India border
area. A potion made from boiling its leaves may have been used medicinally
by local mountain dwellers since time immemorial, but it was those on the
Chinese side who from about 3,000 B.C.E. spread the use and later developed
the processing for the beverage that became famous throughout the world.

Legend has it that Shen Nong, known in China as the God of Agriculture,
was boiling water outdoors and some tea leaves fell into the pot, possibly a
"tripod" of fired clay with three hollow legs that straddle the fire. He drank
the brew and liked it. Thus tea was born. Shen Nong is credited with discovering
many medicinal herbs. Another tale is that in testing these, when any proved to
be poisonous, tea was his antidote.

Tea began to be drunk as a beverage for enjoyment rather than purely med-
icine in the third century B.C.E. Tea drinking became an art in the Tang Dynasty
(seventh to tenth centuries). One of China's golden ages, this was also a golden

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