4 TEA 



calls attention to the mention of the plant, and adds 

 that a beverage could be obtained from the leaves by 

 adding hot water. It appears that the plant was used 

 entirely as a medicine until 550 A.D., when it became a 

 popular beverage. 



I )c Candolle, however, in summing up the evidence 

 on both sides, attaches considerable weight to the fact 

 that apparently wild specimens of tea have been found 

 by travellers in Upper Assam and in the province of 

 Cochar, and adds that " the tea plant must be wild in 

 the mountainous region which separates the plains of 

 India from those of China " ; he, however, regards the 

 evidence as tending to prove that the use of the leaves 

 was introduced into India from the latter country. 



Much more certain information naturally exists as 

 to the date of the introduction of the product into 

 Europe. There is a story which states that a package 

 of a commodity hitherto unknown was received by an 

 , old couple in England during the reign of Queen Eliza- 

 beth, and that, instead of infusing the leaves and using 

 the extract, they threw away the coloured liquid and 

 ate the leaves after spreading them upon bread. What- 

 ever may be said as to the probability of this story, 

 it is definitely known that tea was introduced into 

 Europe from China late in the sixteenth century, and 

 that in 1657 a regular tea-house w r as opened in Exchange 

 Alley, London. From this date tea began to be a regular 

 beverage in England. It is mentioned by IVj'\ 

 his Diary; under the date 28th September, 1660, we 

 read : " I did send for a cup of tea (a China drink), 

 of which I had never drunk before," and, " Home, and 

 there find my wife making of tea, a drink which Mr. Felling 

 the Pothicary tells her is good for her cold and deflux- 

 ions." It was at about the time of its earliest introduc- 

 tion into England that tea first became known in Russia, 



