Early Origins

Tea can be traced back to china to around 3000BC, where there are many stories and legends as to the origins of tea but perhaps the most famous of these is the story that the second emperor of china discovered tea after a few leaves blew into his drink. Tea started to become widely cultivated by 500AD both for its perceived medicinal properties and its taste. It was also around this time that tea was first exported to Japan where it also became popular but because of its expense was only really enjoyed by the aristocracy.

Introduction to England

It wasn't until far later that tea was first brought to England when Charles II wed a tea drinking bride form Portugal Catherine of Braganza, making tea drinking popular among her court. Tea quickly took off in England as London coffee houses introduced the new drink selling in both liquid and dried form. As its popularity grew sales of ales and liquors fell slowing the steady tax stream from their sale, as a result the sale tea was forbidden in public houses and coffee houses where forced to apply for a licence. By around 1750 taxation on tea had reached an insane 119%, making smuggling tea a highly profitable business.

A Matter of Time

Because of the huge distances the tea had to travel to reach Europe and England the tea was often in transit for a year, this coupled with the huge demand for tea lead to the development of clippers first lead by the Americas followed by England and Europe, these new faster ships could make the trip in significantly less time with peak speeds of around 30km/h. One of the most famous of these was the Cutty Sark which is still preserved in dry dock Greenwich, United Kingdom.

Rise of The Tea Bags

The next major development was the introduction of tea bags making the transportation and production of tea for easier. The bags where first seen in America in the early 20th century and where intended to be used solely for the easy distribution of samples but customers soon realised that they could just leave the tea in the bag and many left them to dry and re-used them.

The Modern Tea Pot

Tea bags went on to be the primary means of distribution across the world accounting for around 97% of tea sales in the United Kingdom, this is despite the fact that many consider the flavour to be inferior to loose tea. The tea drinking habits of the nation are so predictable that the national grid prepares each weekday for a huge surge in demand for power following the end of the BBC TV soap Eastenders as millions go off to make a cup of tea.

Nowadays tea is primarily produced in India with around 26% of tea produced there closely followed by China, outside of tourism it is India's largest industry.