People drink tea all over the world, as it is the most preferable drink for lots of people. Tea comes from all parts of the plant camellia sinensis. There are several types of camellia sinensis, most of them grow in the tropical regions, but some types can grow in colder climates as USA and Britain.
Tea was first discovered by the Chinese more than 4000 years ago by the Chinese emperor and inventor Shennong. The Emperor used to drink boiled water to be sure it is clean, in the year 2737 BC accidentally a tea leaf fell into the boiled water of the Emperor, and the Emperor liked it, and that was the beginning of the tea, or black tea.
Tea was drunk as a refreshing drink described for medical reasons. until the third century BC that it become a daily habit.
Yensei, a Japanese Buddhist priest that used to live in China transferred the tea to Japan in the 900 AD, and the Japanese presented the art of the tea ceremony.
Tea reached the colonist in America in the year 1650 by the Dutch Peter Stuyvesant (1592-1672) he was the director of colonist.
Then it reached England in the year 1670, in England the tea became very important and it served with a snake as the afternoon tea, in the 19th century the British became the largest consumers of tea.
Later by the year 1680 Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (1626-1696) was the first to serve milk with tea.
Iced tea was first served to people in the year 1904 in the St. Louis World Fair, the Englishman Richard Blechynden added the ice to the hot tea in order to cool it, as the weather was very hot and people refused to buy hot tea. The ice tea is now introduced in so many flavors.
The American tea merchant Thomas Sullivan was packing samples of tea in silk packages, that was the start of the tea bags in the year 1907, but it didn’t spread till the year 1953 when Tetley, the famous tea distributor started distributing tea bags in England.
Green tea is now a preferable drink all over the world. The difference between the black tea and the green tea is that the black tea is wilted and oxidized, while the green tea is unwilted and unoxidized.