The interesting story about the origin of tea goes like this- once the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was relaxing under a tree, while his servants were boiling water for him to drink. The emperor, who was a renowned herbalist, noticed that some leaves from the tree fell into the water accidentally. Shen Nung told his servants that he would like to try the flavour of that accidentally created drink. The tree was Camellia sinensis, which is native to the foothills of the Himalayas, and the drink made was what we now call tea.
It is believed that the Chinese first gathered the leaves from the wild, and only in AD 350 did they started cultivating tea plants. Soon, tea became popular in the Far East. There was even a popular tea ceremony in Japan during the 15th century. The Dutch and Portuguese popularized tea among the Europeans in the 16th century.
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