Tea,Tea and Tea time....as today I would like to start a series of post on The Origins Of Everyday Thing which we use , consume ,ware or do what ever we want or wish.We may not aware how its come to existence in today modern world.Some may also been invented by genius or some by chance and walla!! here there are like Newton discovered gravity or else all of us might be floating...hahahah just kidding.So let see what we have today.As I had stated when I am writing this in the beginning which sound some Tea.I believe most of us love to drink tea.For me its one of my favorite especially in the evening and I guess my mom had spoil me on this.I am one of the tea lover and use to buy them when I travel aboard for my curiosity on hows they taste in others place of the world.
British Teapot
The Legend say One hot day more than 4500 years ago the Chinese emperor Chen-nung was boiling water to refresh himself.A few leaves blew off a nearby shrub and landed in the water,and Cheng-nung named the resultant brew "tay" or "ch'a".The legend is an appealing one but in fact no one knows who first drank tea.However the leaves came from the evergreen shrub Camellia Sinensis,which is native to the foothills of the Himalayas.
The Chines first gathered the leaves from the wild and have cultivated the tea plant since at least AD350.In time taking tea for its stimulating properties took on social and cultural significance throughout the Far East and India which culminated in an elaborate tea ceremony in Japan,popularised in the 15th century.
Europeans first heard of tea in the 16th century from Dutch traders and Portuguese missionaries.Tea went on public sale for the first time in London around 1657.With many claims made for its medicinal value.In 1660 the diarist Samuel Pepys sent for "a cupp of tee(a China drink) of which I never had drank before".
It was the court of Charles II that established tea as the fashionable drink of the elite.His bride the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza,was a dedicated tea drinker and after she arrived in England in 1662 the habit soon spread.The 17th century trend for taking afternoon tea in tea gardens owed much to European adaptations of Oriental traditions.
The Chinese added heated milk to black,fermented teas but not to green unfermented ones.In 1665 tea was served with milk at a Dutch banquet in Guangzhou (Canton) and in 1671 the French brought the practice to Europe.As many teas were bitter-tasting,sweet toothed Europeans also added sugar.
The ancient Chinese brewed up in unglazed red or brown stoneware pots and sent some of these to Europe with first cargoes of tea.Dutch potters imitated the Chinese design but soon gave their teapots more ornate and fanciful shapes,decorating them with coloured clays and glazes.The traditional rounded British teapot is based on early Chinese pots.
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