The History of tea begins in southwest China and the surrounding areas where the tea plant is native. Tea consumption dates back over three thousand years to China’s Shang dynasty, when it was used for medicinal purposes. Hua Tuo, a respected Chinese doctor who lived about 1,800 years ago, wrote about tea’s medical properties. Eventually, Chinese began to drink tea for the stimulating effect of caffeine rather than as a medical concoction.
From China, tea spread to Japan during the sixth century A.D., and later to Korea and Viet Nam. It took much longer for tea to reach Europe. It was mentioned by an Arab traveler during the ninth century, and famous thirteenth century Italian traveler Marco Polo mentioned it in his writings. It wasn’t until the early 1600s that we know tea definitely arrived in Europe, courtesy of the Dutch East India Company. Although tea is closely associated with the British, tea did not appear in English coffee houses until the 1650s. Within a century it became their national beverage.
While the history of tea begins in China, No one did more to expand tea drinking worldwide than the British. They brought it to North America, Australia and other areas under British colonial rule. Once the American Revolution began, tea drinking was viewed as unpatriotic in the newly formed United States, and most Americans switched to coffee. Canadians remained predominately tea drinkers until after World War II, when they also began switching to coffee.
For many years the British had to trade silver to obtain tea from China. Naturally, they sought to trade other products for tea instead of silver. This effort resulted in failure when the Chinese emperor wrote to King George III in 1793, saying that “There is no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians.” Eventually, the British did find something that was desired in China – Opium.
The sale of opium sparked military confrontation between the British and China. Although Great Britain prevailed, it soon began growing tea in India and Sri Lanka. In the early twentieth century, India passed China to become the largest producer of tea. Despite this it wasn’t until the 1950s that tea became widely consumed in India. Recently, Chinese tea production again surpassed that of India. Today China is the largest tea producer at over two million metric tons, more than twice the production of India. The next three biggest producers are all former British colonies: India, Kenya and Sri Lanka. The fifth largest producer is Turkey.
One might expect the British to be the largest per capita consumers of tea, but they actually rank third, with a per capita consumption of 4.28 pounds per year. Their Irish neighbors consume slightly more, at 4.83 pounds. Turkey is the leader in drinking tea, with its citizens drinking over 50% more than the British, at nearly seven pounds per person. Consumption of tea is not that high in the major producers of China (1.25 pounds) and India (0.72 pounds). In North America, Canadians consume 1.12 pounds each year, over twice as much as Americans (0.50 pounds). Mexican citizens use only 0.03 pounds per person each year.