In Healing Teas, Marie Nadine Antol explains that the first mention of tea as a beverage came to us from the Chinese scholar Lu Yu, in his work The Classic of Tea, which dates back to A.D. 350. According to Lu Yu, the first cup of tea was discovered accidentally.

In The Classic of Tea, Yu reports that in 2737 B.C., the Chinese Emperor Shen-Nung was purifying some water by boiling it, when some leaves from a wild tea bush blew into the pot without him noticing. When he took a sip of his water, he noticed the color change and sniffed the drink. As you may have guessed, the emperor liked the taste, and thus the tea tradition began.

Though the Chinese had tea to themselves for about 3000 years, other cultures eventually discovered this wonderful drink. Antol explains that the Japanese were the next to discover tea, calling it the froth of jade, the elixir of morality."

Later, tea's popularity spread to all of Asia and the rest of the world-to places such as Russia, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, and Britain. The teas of India and Sri Lanka also became very popular.

Herbal Teas from herbsmed.com.