Home of China's Tea Culture

Nestled amid the peaks adjoining the West Lake wonderland, China's famous Longjing Tea Plantation hosts the National Tea Museum, an 8000-square-meter monument to the country's deeply-rooted infatuation with what the Chinese call "cha," otherwise known as camelia sinensis.

On entering the exhibition hall, the first thing you see is a water- curtained wall, with a huge Chinese Character for "Tea" carved on it.

Gao Hong, one of the museum staff, explains the design.

"This Character, "Tea," is excerpted from the writing of Wang Xizhi, one of the greatest Chinese calligraphers of all time. To infuse water over the character indicates the long history of the Chinese tea culture."

The story of tea begins in China, dating back 5,000 years! Legend has it that the emperor Sheng Nung, a renowned herbalist, was sitting beneath a tree while his servant was boiling water for drinking. Leaves from the tree blew into the water. So the herbalist decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The serendipitous result is what we now call tea.

Of course, we cannot absolutely verify the story, but it does establish China's love affair with the brew centuries before it had even been heard of in the West.

"By the time of the Tang Dynasty about 1000 years ago, tea was the national drink of China, spreading from court circles to become popular throughout Chinese society. It was during this period that tea drinking also became popular in neighboring counties like Japan, India, and Sri Lanka."