As you sip and savor the wonderful flavors of black teas, green teas, oolongs, and scented/herbal teas, you'll understand why more people worldwide consume more tea than any other beverage except water.
With the popularity of herbal infusions (such as chamomile, peppermint, rooibos, yerba mate, etc.) in today’s marketplace, a whole gamut of brews (both iced and hot) have come to be referred to as “tea.†Technically speaking, however, only those beverages derived from the plant camellia sinensis should be referred to as such. To distinguish them from true teas, herbal infusions are often referred to as tisanes (pronounced TEE-san).
Camellia sinensis is an evergreen shrub indigenous to southeast Asia that thrives in subtropic and highland tropic regions. The leaves and buds of camellia sinensis are harvested and processed in various fashions to produce the range of tea varieties available today (such as black, oolong, green and white). In 2003, Americans consumed more than 50 billion servings of tea (85% of which was on ice!).
Although tea comes from very specific botanical origins, it has come to be known by many names across the globe: cha (China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh), chay (Turkey), chai (Middle East and Russia), chá (Portugal), tay (China - Fujian province), thé (France), tee (Germany), thee (Holland), and té (Spain and Italy).
One can even trace tea’s historical journey through its linguistics. The Mandarin Chinese “cha†followed tea throughout Asia when tea spread beyond Chinese borders in the 5th century. Much later, in 1644AD, British merchants found their way to the Fujian province of China, where they set up trading posts. Along with camellia sinensis, the British exported the Fujian word “tay†to Europe, which they spelled “tea.â€
To many, tea is much more than the leaves of camellia sinensis steeped in hot water – tea is also an act, an experience. Cultures across the globe have developed myriad traditions revolving around the service of tea, from the Japanese tea ceremony to the English high tea.
