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The origins of tea
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The tea plant belongs to the Camellia Sinensis family and originates from China. This is also where the leaves started to be used as the basis for a drink.
The first written record of tea dates back to 200 BC, when it was mentioned in a pharmacological treatise.
The Art of Tea appeared in the 8th century with the early methods of producing, processing and tasting tea.
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Tea was consumed in turn as a kind of soup (adding a pinch of salt to the brewed tea), as a citrus-flavoured soup (adding citrus peel, spices and fruits), as a decoction, then a drink for Buddhist monks - the very ones who introduced it to Japan in the 9th century. It was only exported from China to the West a couple of centuries later, during the Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644).
At this time, tea was drunk as it is made today: in a teapot, sometimes infused several times. Tea then absorbed the influence of the continents it crossed: in Japan it became the focus of a ceremony, in Russia it was made in a samovar, in the United Kingdom it was drunk strong, either black or with a splash of milk.
Tea was always associated with a real philosophy of life in Chinese and Japanese culture, before being introduced to the West by the Jesuits in the 15th century. |
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