How Old is Tea Drinking? Really?
You'll often read that Shen Nung, a Chinese emperor who lived some 4,700 years ago, discovered that tea leaves falling into boiling water make a refreshing drink. Alas, the emperor — credited with numerous discoveries in medicine, pharmacy, agriculture — is likely a myth himself. The earliest authenticated record of commercial cul...
Drink your way to the top...
80% of office workers now claim they find out more about what's going on at work over a cup of tea than in any other way.
Everyone's favourite...
By the middle of the 18th Century tea had replaced ale and gin as the drink of the masses and had become Britain's most popular beverage.
How many cups a day...
The number of recommended cups of tea to drink each day is 4, this gives you optimal benefit.
Bag it up...
96% of all cups of tea drunk daily in the UK are brewed from tea bags.
As you like it...
98% of people take their tea with milk, but only 30% take sugar in tea.
The invention of the tea bag
The invention of the tea bag is said to have resulted from the small silk sample bags used by Thomas Sullivan, a New York City tea merchant, in 1908 to send out to potential customers. However the 1920's is said to have been the 'decade of the teabag,' and its commercial use developed from the tea egg or tea ball (a perforated metal container...
The first teacup
The earliest tea cups had no handles, being originally imported from China where cups traditionally were more like small beakers. As tea drinking gained popularity, so did the demand for more British-style tea ware.
This fuelled the rapid growth of the English pottery and porcelain industry, which soon became world famous. Most factori...
The first teapot
In the earliest history of tea drinking, tealeaves were simply boiled in open pans. It was the Ming Dynasty that led the fashion for 'steeping' the leaves and therefore led to the need for a covered pot that would allow the leaves to infuse and keep the liquor hot. Ewers, resembling the modern teapot, that for centuries had been used for wine...