History of Tea | Can’t Sleep? Steep Yourself in History

The Chinese emperor Shennong was sitting in his garden around 2737 BCE, drinking a bowl of just-boiled water, when a few leaves blew from a nearby tree into his cup. He took a sip, was surprised by the flavor, and found the brew had restorative properties. In a variant of the legend, he was testing poisonous herbs on himself and discovered tea worked as an antidote. That origin story—part myth, part plausible ancient memory—is where the long, tangled history of tea begins, a history that spans millennia, continents, empires, and revolutions.

From Medicinal Concoction to Imperial Tribute

The earliest physical evidence of tea drinking dates to the second century BCE, found in the Mausoleum of Emperor Jing of Han in Xi'an. Scientists identified the samples as tea from the genus Camellia using mass spectrometry. But written records suggest tea was consumed much earlier, possibly as far back as the tenth century BCE in China's Yunnan Province, where it likely began as a medicinal broth. The first known reference to boiling tea comes from a Han dynasty work called the Contract for a Youth, written by Wang Bao, which lists tasks like "he shall boil tea and fill the utensils" and "he shall buy tea at Wuyang." The first record of tea cultivation also dates to this period, on Meng Mountain near Chengdu, where the first 360 leaves were picked each spring and presented to the empe