No. 001 Where does tea come from? Where it all began
TSURU COLLECTION • ARTICLE 001
The Origins of Tea
14 to 16 min read • Level: introductory • Cap sur le Thé
Tea was not born in a day, nor in a single valley. From the forests of Asia to the earliest texts of imperial China, let us follow what botany establishes, what research suggests, and what legends transmit.
“Before it was a beverage, tea was an encounter between a plant and humanity.”
The original landscape: a vast area stretching from the eastern Himalayas to southern China and northern Indochina.
The silence before history
Day breaks over the highlands of southwest China. Mist lingers among the trees, the air carries the scent of damp earth, and the first leaves catch a still-soft light. In this landscape, an evergreen shrub might go unnoticed. Yet, its young shoots will give rise to one of the most widely shared beverages in the world.
This plant is called Camellia sinensis. It belongs to the Theaceae family. In the wild, it can grow into a small tree; in tea gardens, regular pruning often keeps it at plucking height. Its leaves are leathery and finely serrated. Its white flowers remind us that the tea plant is a camellia before it is a harvest.
Green tea, white tea, black tea, oolong, yellow tea, or dark tea: all these families come from this same species. Their diversity does not come from a collection of unrelated plants, but from cultivated lineages, terroirs, seasons, and above all, the processing applied to the leaves after plucking.
Before teapots, bowls, and treatises, there was therefore a plant. But where did it grow? The answer seems simple when summarized in one word—China—and becomes more interesting when we look closer at maps and genetics.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
All true teas come from Camellia sinensis. The differences we taste arise from plant lineages, the growing environment, and the processing of the leaves.
A cradle broader than a point on the map
For a long time, the origin of tea was told as that of a tree born in a specific valley. Current data calls for greater caution. Kew Botanical Gardens place the native range of Camellia sinensis in a broad arc stretching from the eastern Himalayas to southern China and northern Indochina. This area notably includes Assam, south-central and southeastern China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Within this vast region, Yunnan occupies a major place. Its forests and ancient tea plants preserve a remarkable diversity; several genetic studies recognize it as an important center in the history of assamica-type teas. But Yunnan alone does not explain the entire domestication of tea.
Genetic analyses suggest several lineages and several centers of domestication: southern China for Chinese-type teas, Yunnan for Chinese assamica teas, and Assam for Indian assamica teas. The exact boundaries, crossbreeding, and chronologies continue to be studied. Science does not therefore replace a single legend with a new certainty; it reveals a more branched history.
It is thus more accurate to speak of a vast Asian home, and then of domestications and selections carried out by different communities. Tea probably does not have a birth certificate. It has a geography, made of mountains, forests, and human movement.
Want to continue this journey in a cup? Discover the black tea from Shan, in Myanmar and the Menghai Pu-erh, in Yunnan: two origins to explore the diversity of tea.
FACT, HYPOTHESIS, LEGEND
Established fact: Camellia sinensis is native to a large part of South and Southeast Asia.
Solid scientific hypothesis: several lineages were domesticated in distinct regions.
Still debated point: the exact location and date of each domestication.
A plant before a beverage
Knowing where the tea plant grows does not yet tell us when its leaves entered human life. On this point, certainties are rare. No witness can recount the first plucking, and no vestige allows us to reconstruct the very first use.
It is plausible that populations living in contact with the tea plant first tasted or prepared its leaves in different ways. They may have chewed them, cooked them, mixed them with food, or used them in medicinal practices. These scenarios often appear in tea stories, but they should not be presented as proven scenes.
What can be stated is more modest: the transformation of a wild plant into a crop, and then into a codified beverage, was gradual. It required recognizing the right trees, choosing the shoots, learning to preserve the leaves, and transmitting gestures. A cup is not born from an isolated discovery; it is born from a long accumulation of experiences.
This slowness explains why botanical origin, the origin of domestication, and the origin of the beverage do not coincide. The plant has its natural range. Human societies then built several stories around it.
Shen Nong: the truth of a legend
The most famous of these stories features Shen Nong, the “Divine Farmer,” a mythical figure associated in China with agriculture and the knowledge of plants.
According to a very widespread version, Shen Nong would have boiled water when a leaf, carried by the wind, fell into the vessel. The water would have changed color; its fragrance would have awakened his curiosity; the sovereign would have tasted the infusion. Tea was born thus, almost by chance.
The story is beautiful, but it is not a historical account. Shen Nong belongs to the world of legendary sovereigns, and no contemporary source allows us to attest to this scene. The date of 2737 before our era, often repeated, belongs to tradition, not to a verifiable chronology.
Should we then discard the legend? No. It does not tell us who actually prepared the first cup, but it reveals the place accorded to tea in the Chinese imagination: that of a plant observed, tested, and transmitted as valuable knowledge. A legend can be culturally true without being historically proven—provided we never confuse the two.
LEGEND CLEARLY IDENTIFIED
Shen Nong is not presented here as the historical discoverer of tea. His story is a founding myth: it illuminates a culture, not a date.
When matter meets history
To leave the realm of stories, we must look for traces. In 2016, a team of researchers published the analysis of plant remains discovered in the Han Yangling mausoleum, near Xi’an, associated with Emperor Jing of Han. The study identified tea in a funerary context dating to the 2nd century before our era.
The same study examined remains from the Gurgyam cemetery, in western Tibet, dating approximately to the 2nd-3rd centuries of our era. These results constitute the oldest physical evidence of tea recognized by this publication and show that it circulated over long distances well before the medieval era.
These discoveries do not allow us to state that all of China was already drinking tea in the same way. They prove something more precise: during the Western Han period, tea leaves or products had reached an imperial environment; a few centuries later, they were present on the Tibetan plateau.
Ancient texts are more difficult to interpret. Several characters could have designated bitter plants, and the identification of tea is not always certain. For this reason, historians distinguish possible mentions from indisputable evidence. The past becomes clearer as the sources approach the Tang dynasty.
DID YOU KNOW?
The archaeological evidence from the Han Yangling mausoleum does not tell a recipe. It attests to the material presence of tea in a dated context—more modest information, but much more solid.
Under the Tang, tea enters written culture
Between 618 and 907, under the Tang dynasty, tea takes on a new place. Its consumption expands, exchanges develop, and the beverage accompanies varied environments: courts, scholars, monasteries, and homes. The forms of preparation are not yet those of today. Tea can be shaped into cakes, then heated, ground, and prepared in water.
It is in this world that Lu Yu lives, born around 733 and died in 804. His journey is known through biographical traditions whose some details have been embellished, but his work, it is very real.
The Cha Jing—the Classic of Tea—is composed in the 8th century and generally dated to the 760s to 780s. The first known treatise entirely dedicated to tea, it gathers in ten parts information on the plant, its cultivation, its processing, the utensils, the preparation, the producing regions, and earlier stories.
Lu Yu does not “discover” tea. He accomplishes another decisive gesture: he organizes scattered knowledge. He observes practices, describes them, and gives them a transmissible form. With him, tea becomes a subject worthy of an entire book.
The Cha Jing should not be read as a modern manual. It belongs to its time, with its techniques, its tastes, and its references. Yet, its ambition is familiar to us: to understand where tea comes from, how it is processed, and why the quality of a cup depends on a chain of choices.
At the end of the Tang, the history of tea is not complete. It is only beginning to unfold beyond its old homes. Other routes, other gestures, and other cultures will take over. But to answer our question, we can already stop here.
So, where does tea come from?
It comes first from a plant native to a vast Asian arc, from the eastern Himalayas to southern China and northern Indochina.
It then comes from several communities that selected tea plants, learned to process their leaves, and transmitted their gestures. Yunnan holds a central place in this story, without constituting by itself a definitive answer.
Finally, it comes from a cultural construction. Archaeological evidence shows us tea in Han China and on the Tibetan plateau. The legend of Shen Nong gives it a founding story. Under the Tang, Lu Yu transforms a set of practices into written knowledge.
The origin of tea is therefore neither a single point on a map nor a date engraved in stone. It is a prolonged encounter between a species, landscapes, and human societies.
When a few leaves meet hot water today, this story does not repeat itself identically. It continues.
Key Takeaways
- Camellia sinensis is the species from which all tea families come.
- Its native range covers a vast area stretching from the eastern Himalayas to southern China and northern Indochina.
- Genetic data suggests several lineages and several centers of domestication; Yunnan is major, but the story is not reduced to a single cradle.
- The first human uses remain partly unknown: they must be presented as hypotheses, not as established scenes.
- Shen Nong belongs to Chinese legend; the date of 2737 before our era is not a historical fact.
- Remains identified as tea in the Han Yangling mausoleum attest to its presence in the 2nd century before our era.
- In the 8th century, Lu Yu composed the Cha Jing, the first known treatise entirely dedicated to tea.
A plant. Several homes.
Centuries of transmission.
And in every cup, a story that continues.
From Reading to the Cup
Two Stops in the Asian Cradle of Tea
Extend the journey to two regions mentioned in this article: Myanmar and Yunnan. Two families of tea, two expressions to discover in their natural form.
Myanmar Black Tea Leaf
50 g · Shan Black Tea
With no added flavoring, this is a full-bodied and robust black tea, with body, sweetness, and a noticeable astringency.
€15.90
Discover this tea
Pu-erh Menghai 5 Years
50 g · Yunnan Dark Tea
An unflavored Pu-erh with notes of bitter chocolate, dried fruit, and earthy molasses. The five years indicate its maturation.
€19.40
Discover this teaThese current selections invite you to explore these regions. They do not claim to reproduce ancient beverages or demonstrate a precise historical origin of tea.
Find the dosages, temperatures, and steeping times on each product page. To explore several profiles in small formats, discover our tasting sets.
Sources and References
The following references were used to verify the botanical and historical claims of the manuscript. They are presented outside the narrative to preserve the flow of reading.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Plants of the World Online. Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze: taxonomy and native range. https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:828548-1
Meegahakumbura et al., 2018 — Frontiers in Plant Science. Domestication Origin and Breeding History of the Tea Plant (Camellia sinensis) in China and India Based on Nuclear Microsatellites and cpDNA Sequence Data. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.02270
Lei et al., 2022 — Frontiers in Plant Science. Whole-genome resequencing reveals the origin of tea in Lincang. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.1011104
Lu et al., 2016 — Scientific Reports. Earliest tea as evidence for one branch of the Silk Road across the Tibetan Plateau. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18955
Lu Yu — Cha Jing. Chinese text of the Classic of Tea, an 8th-century work. Digital edition: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23949
James A. Benn, 2015 — University of Hawai‘i Press. Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History. A comprehensive work on the historical and religious formation of tea culture.
Zhejiang University Museum of Art and Archaeology. Tea ceremony in the Tang Dynasty: presentation of the Cha Jing as the first known monograph on tea. https://www.zju.edu.cn/english/2020/1221/c19946a2235900/page.htm
University of Michigan Museum of Art. Tea Cups: museum presentation of the legend of Shen Nong, explicitly given as the legend. https://umma.umich.edu/objects/tea-cups-2022-1-73a-f/
TSURU COLLECTION
Continue the Tea Journey
After this history of origins, discover the Camellia sinensis plant at the origin of all teas, then learn why the picking of a bud and two leaves has such an influence on quality.
To understand the diversity born from this same leaf, read the secret of the colors of tea or explore our rare and grand cru teas.
© 2026 Cap sur le Thé — Tsuru Collection No. 001.
Text and illustrations protected. Any reproduction, even partial, without prior authorization is prohibited.
Article written by the Cap sur le Thé crew — discover our story.
