70 Fun Facts About Tea

Tea is brewed from the leaves of which plant species?

The others are yerba mate, coffee and rooibos, none of which is technically tea.

After plain drinking water, which is the most widely consumed beverage in the world?

Global production reached 29.8 million tonnes in 2022, nearly half of it from China.

Chinese legend credits the discovery of tea in 2737 BC to which mythical emperor?

In the story a few leaves blew from a nearby tree into his pot of boiling water and changed its colour and taste.

Tea drinking may have begun for medicinal purposes in which Chinese province?

The probable centre of origin of the plant is near the source of the Irrawaddy River.

The Classic of Tea, an eighth-century treatise on tea and its preparation, was written by whom?

The book describes how the plants were grown, the leaves processed and the drink prepared.

Which Europeans first introduced tea drinking to Europe during the 16th century?

Priests and merchants made first contact with tea in China; the Dutch brought the 'te' pronunciation a century later.

Which princess brought the tea-drinking habit to the English court when she married Charles II in 1662?

She was Portuguese, from the country that had first carried tea to Europe.

'Tea' reached English in the 17th century via the Dutch from which variety of Chinese?

The 'cha' form had already reached English in the 1590s through the Portuguese.

Which type of tea is wilted, bruised and only partially oxidized?

Its oxidation can run anywhere from about 8 to 85 percent, and the name means 'dark dragon'.

Which country led global tea production in 2022 with roughly 49 percent of the total?

China, India and Sri Lanka are among the handful of countries that account for about 81 percent of world production.

Turkish tea is traditionally served in small glasses of what shape, called ince belli or 'slim-waisted'?

Most of it is Rize tea from the Black Sea coast, brewed in a stacked two-pot caydanlik.

As of 2016, which country was the world's second-biggest per-capita consumer of tea?

The Irish average works out to between 2.7 and 4 kilograms per person a year.

Roughly what share of tea's dry weight is caffeine?

That works out to between 30 and 90 milligrams in a 250-millilitre cup.

Which New York tea importer popularized tea bags around 1908 by shipping samples in small silk pouches?

Two Milwaukee women, Roberta Lawson and Mary McLaren, had already patented a 'Tea Leaf Holder' in 1903.

Which brand introduced tea bags to the United Kingdom in 1953?

PG Tips answered decades later with the pyramid bag in 1997.

In 1848 the East India Company sent which Scottish botanist to China to bring tea plants back to India?

He travelled disguised as a Chinese merchant and shipped the plants in Wardian cases.

Darjeeling tea, marketed as the 'Champagne of teas', is grown in which Indian state?

In 2004 it became India's first product to receive geographical indication protection under the WTO's TRIPS agreement.

The Tea Board of India recognizes how many estates as producers of authentic Darjeeling tea?

Between them they cover about 17,500 hectares at 600 to 2,000 metres above sea level.

Which is the world's largest tea-growing region by production, sitting in the Brahmaputra valley?

Its gardens run on 'Tea Garden Time', an hour ahead of Indian Standard Time, a leftover from British rule.

Which country was the world's largest exporter of black tea in 2018?

Tea was first planted there in 1903 at Limuru, and most of it is sold through a public auction in Mombasa.

On December 16, 1773, colonists disguised as Mohawks dumped East India Company tea into which harbor?

The ships were the Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver, and the cargo was worth about 9,659 pounds sterling.

Which May 1773 act gave the East India Company a monopoly and set off the Massachusetts protest?

Britain answered the protest with the Intolerable Acts, closing Boston's port.

Britain countered its trade deficit with China using which narcotic, sparking an 1839 war?

The resulting Treaty of Nanking ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain in perpetuity.

The tea clipper Cutty Sark, built in 1869, takes its name from a character in a poem by whom?

She was launched the same year the Suez Canal opened, which handed the China route to steamships, so she later hauled Australian wool instead.

Afternoon tea is usually credited to Anna, the seventh Duchess of which title, in the 1840s?

She wanted something to bridge the gap between midday dinner and an evening meal that could come as late as eight o'clock.

The hearty working-class evening meal called 'high tea' got its name from what?

It was the hearty working-class evening meal; the dainty afternoon version was 'low tea'.

A traditional West Country tea centres on scones served with jam and what?

Devon puts the cream on first and Cornwall the jam, and neither county will let it go.

Earl Grey tea is a black tea flavoured with the oil of which citrus fruit?

Twinings' Lady Grey adds cornflower and Seville orange to the blend.

Thomas Twining opened Britain's first known tea room in 1706 at No. 216 on which London street?

The firm still trades there, and its 1787 logo is the world's oldest in continuous use.

In which country did Glasgow grocer Thomas Lipton buy tea gardens in 1890?

The yellow pack with the red shield dates from the same year and is still in use.

Matcha is a finely ground powder of green tea leaves that have been grown how before harvest?

Japanese labelling rules require two to three weeks of shading, and the powder is whisked with a bamboo chasen.

Which monk brought powdered tea from China to Japan around 1191, having encountered it in temples there?

His disciple Myoe planted tea in Uji, near Kyoto, which became Japan's foremost tea-producing region.

The Japanese term chanoyu, used for the tea ceremony, literally means what?

Sen no Rikyu, who shaped the ceremony around the wabi aesthetic in the 1500s, had great-grandchildren who founded the Omotesenke, Urasenke and Mushakojisenke schools.

What is the deliberately small entrance door of a traditional Japanese tea house called?

The ideal tea room is just four and a half tatami mats in area.

Japanese green teas are mostly steamed; Chinese green teas are typically processed how?

Steaming gives Japanese teas their sweeter, grassier flavour; sencha alone accounts for about 80 percent of Japan's output.

Gunpowder tea gets its name because each leaf is rolled into what?

Longjing, or Dragon Well, from near Hangzhou is the best-known pan-fired Chinese green tea.

Pu'er, a fermented tea aged and traded like wine, comes from which Chinese province?

It comes as raw sheng or accelerated ripe shou, usually pressed into cakes.

Da Hong Pao, one of the world's priciest teas, is a rock tea from which mountain range?

Only six original mother trees survive on the cliffs there; the name means 'Big Red Robe'.

Bubble tea, with its chewy tapioca pearls, originated in the 1980s in which place?

Two shops claim it, Chun Shui Tang in Taichung and Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan, and April 30 is now National Bubble Tea Day there.

The word 'boba', for the pearls in bubble tea, began as a nickname for an actress from where?

The term is far more common in the West than in Asia itself.

Language purists object to the phrase 'chai tea' because the Hindi word chai already means what?

The Hindi word descends from the Chinese cha, and masala chai adds cardamom, ginger and cinnamon to it.

Iced tea's popularity surged after Richard Blechynden served it at the 1904 World's Fair in which city?

Printed recipes go back to the 1870s, and today about 85 percent of tea drunk in the US is iced.

Roughly what share of all tea consumed in the United States is iced?

The Arnold Palmer, half iced tea and half lemonade, caught on after the golfer ordered one in Palm Beach in the late 1960s.

Tibetan po cha is tea churned with salt and butter from which animal?

Tibetans can drink up to 60 small cups a day, and a host refills the bowl after every sip.

Which country took up tea after losing Yemen and led per-head tea drinking in 2016?

Turkish tea is brewed in a two-tier caydanlik and poured into 'slim-waisted' ince belli glasses.

Since the 18th century, which Russian city has been the main centre of samovar production?

A small pot on top brews a strong concentrate called zavarka, which is diluted with water from the urn.

Hong Kong's 'silk stocking' milk tea gets its name from the colour of what?

Hongkongers make it with evaporated milk, and the technique was declared intangible cultural heritage in 2017.

Teh tarik, Malaysia's national drink, is made frothy by doing what?

The name means 'pulled tea', and it is a strong black tea with condensed milk served at Indian Muslim mamak stalls.

Yerba mate, drunk from a gourd through a bombilla straw, comes from a plant in which genus?

Ilex paraguariensis was first cultivated by the Guarani, and Brazil is now the biggest producer.

In which year did the British first introduce Chinese small-leaf tea to India?

The Alubari garden opened in 1856 and Darjeeling tea began to be produced.

What sits on the bottom tier of a traditional afternoon tea stand?

Scones occupy the middle tier and small cakes the top. Working up the stand is the accepted order.

Between which hours was afternoon tea originally eaten?

It is also called low tea, after the low tables it was served at. High tea comes considerably later in the day.

What is the other name for afternoon tea?

The name comes from the low tables it was taken at, not from social standing. High tea is the working-class evening meal.

Which social group adopted high tea in the 1860s and 1870s?

It arrived at roughly the same hour but was far heartier, with a savoury dish first. Afternoon tea belonged to the upper and middle classes.

What does a traditional high tea begin with?

Cold cuts such as ham salad are typical. Cakes, bread, butter and jam follow.

Which cakes are named in the classic afternoon tea spread?

Thin bread and butter and delicate sandwiches come first. The sandwiches are usually cucumber, or egg and cress.

How is a traditional cucumber sandwich made?

The slices of both bread and cucumber are thin. It is the definitive finger sandwich of the tea table.

In which Oscar Wilde play does a host eat every cucumber slice before his guest arrives?

Algernon then claims there were no cucumbers in the market, not even for ready money. His butler backs up the lie.

Which riddle does the Hatter ask at the tea table in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

Carroll gave no answer in the original text. He supplied one grudgingly years later, after readers wrote in.

Who joins the Hatter and Alice at the mad tea party?

The scene is chapter seven of the book. The Dormouse spends most of it asleep in a teapot.

What is written on the hatband in Tenniel's original illustration of the Hatter?

It is a price ticket: ten shillings and sixpence. Illustrators and film-makers have kept it ever since.

Where does the phrase 'mad as a hatter' come from?

Poisoning was common in the 19th-century hat trade. The phrase predates Lewis Carroll's books entirely.

How many chests of tea went into the water at the Boston Tea Party?

They were worth £9,659 at the time, well over a million pounds today. Three ships were boarded.

Which three ships were boarded during the Boston Tea Party?

Two carried 114 chests each and the third 112. The raiders wore Mohawk disguises.

How did Parliament respond to the destruction of the tea?

They ended local self-government in Massachusetts and closed the port. The measures pushed the colonies towards war.

The earliest physical evidence of tea, found in 2016, came from the tomb of an emperor of which dynasty?

The mausoleum of Emperor Jing in Xi'an showed that tea was being drunk as early as the 2nd century BCE.

In 1391 the Hongwu Emperor decreed that only what form of tea would be accepted as tribute?

By the end of the 16th century loose-leaf tea had entirely replaced the older cake and powder traditions.

Who was the first person to sell tea in London, at his house in Exchange Alley in 1657?

The tobacconist and coffee-man charged 16 to 50 shillings a pound; Pepys recorded his first cup in 1660.

Which style of Japanese green tea, Japan's favourite, did Soen Nagatani develop in 1738?

Its name literally means 'simmered tea'; unlike the powdered matcha of the tea ceremony, it is brewed from whole leaves.

Tea only became widely popular in India in which decade, thanks to an India Tea Board ad campaign?

Before that it was mostly drunk by Anglicised Indians, despite a century of British plantations in Assam.