China's Tea Culture

People throughout China drink tea daily. Because of the geographic location and climate, different places grow various kinds of tea. In general, there are five kinds of tea classified according to different technique involved in the making of tea:

Green tea - Longjin
Wulong
Scented tea - Jasmine tea
Black tea
compressed tea.

In the past dynasties, people not only formed a special way of tea-drinking, but also developed an art form called tea-drinking. This art form comprises of many aspects. The most noticeable ones are the making of tea, the way of brewing, the drinking utensils such as tea pot. The art of making tea is called "Cha dao", which was soon accepted as one of the most important cultures that Japan learned from China.
In Hangzhou, there is a tea museum, the only national museum of its kind, in which there are detailed description of the historic development of tea culture in China.
China, the Homeland of Tea
China is the homeland of tea. Of the three major beverages of the world-- tea, coffee and cocoa-- tea is consumed by the largest number of people in the world.
China has tea-shrubs as early as five to six thousand years ago, and human cultivation of tea plants dates back two thousand years. Tea from China, along with her silk and porcelain, began to be known the world over more than a thousand years ago and has since always been an important Chinese export.
At present more than forty countries in the world grow tea with Asian countries producing 90% of the world's total output. All tea trees in other countries have their origin directly or indirectly in China. The word for tea leaves or tea as a drink in many countries are derivatives from the Chinese character "cha." The Russians call it "cha'i", which sounds like "chaye" (tea leaves) as it is pronounced in northern China, and the English word "tea" sounds similar to the pronunciation of its counterpart in Xiamen (Amoy). The Japanese character for tea is written exactly the same as it is in Chinese, though pronounced with a slight difference.
The habit of tea drinking spread to Japan in the 6th century, but it was not introduced to Europe and America till the 17th and 18th centuries. Now the number of tea drinkers in the world is legion and is still on the increase.