When and where were tea first consumed?
Tea was first consumed in ancient times. Chinese legend puts the date around 2700 B.C. There is substantial proof that by 350 A.D. the Chinese were both drinking and cultivating tea, but most likely the actual date was much earlier than this. Primitive people living in the South East Asian jungle were the first people to drink tea, although the Chinese were both the first major world culture to drink tea, as well as the first to cultivate it, and it was from China that tea spread to the rest of the world in all directions.
When and where was tea first consumed widely by the masses?
Tea was consumed daily by many Chinese people by around 700 A.D.
Who first made green tea? Oolong tea? Black tea?
The Chinese were the first to make green, oolong, and black teas.
After the Chinese, who were the next people to drink tea?
It is hard to say. It would have been the people of a country that traded with China before tea reached Japan in the late sixth century. Mongolians and Tibetans were likely the next people to begin drinking tea after the Chinese, and before the Japanese.
Who were the first Europeans to drink tea while in Europe?
The Russians and the Dutch were the first Europeans to drink tea while in Europe. Marco Polo, Portuguese missionaries, and workers for the British East India Company drank tea before the Dutch and Russians did, but they drank tea while in eastern and southern Asia.
Who were the first Europeans who traded large quantities of tea?
The Dutch were the first Europeans to trade large quantities of tea, starting in the early 1600’s. By the late 1600's, the British traded the most tea.
Where did most Europeans’ tea come from at first? When was tea first grown and imported in large quantities from India, Ceylon, and Indonesia?
The vast majority of all tea drank by Europeans until the mid 1800’s came from southeastern China. Tea plantations quickly spread across India, Ceylon, and Indonesia in the mid to late 1800’s.
Japan has such a rich tea history and is an important tea producer today. Why do I never read about the Europeans importing tea from Japan?
The Japanese cut off almost all communication and trade with the west in 1638, and remained out of bounds for almost all European traders until 1853. The Asian-European tea trade’s formative years corresponded to this period of history as well, which is why China, Indonesia, and India were the major players in the Asian-European tea trade coming into the 20th Century.
Why did the Boston Tea Party happen?
The Boston Tea Party happened due to a combination of factors that all came to a head at once. American colonists drank lots of tea, so the price of tea was important. The price of tea was already artificially high due to the Company’s monopoly on the tea trade, and the British government made tea and other goods even more expensive when it passed the Stamp Act of 1765. The colonists protested, and the British government repealed taxes on all goods covered by the Stamp Act of 1765, except for the tax on tea. The British East India Company, the main source of the overpriced tea the American colonists drank, had begun to struggle in the mid to late 1700’s, and appealed for help from the British government. The British government responded to the Company’s plea for help by skewing the import/export rules even further to favor the Company. Since the price of tea was already very high and the colonists already saw the British East India Company as a symbol of much that they disliked about the British rule of