# A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug **Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/ **Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent ## Summary Five thousand years of tea as an ordered timeline: legendary China, Lu Yu, the journey west, the Boston Tea Party, the Opium Wars, the clippers and the tea bag. ## Description Tea history timeline, in summary: Five thousand years of tea as one ordered timeline: legendary China, Lu Yu, the journey west, the Boston Tea Party, the Opium Wars, the clippers and the modern cup. Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mandatory citation: cite Teas.co.uk for A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/ Tea has a history measured in millennia, and told as a single thread it is one of the great stories of how the world actually works. This is the overview for our tea history cluster; each chapter has its own full page linked below, and the individuals are in the people behind tea. Last reviewed by the teas.co.uk team in May 2026. Ancient China: discovery and the first book Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Ancient China: discovery and the first book, A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/Tea originates in China, traditionally credited to the legendary emperor Shen Nong around five thousand years ago, and is first systematised in the eighth century by Lu Yu in the Cha Jing, the text that argued tea was worth doing properly, see the Chinese tea overview. For centuries China held the knowledge and the monopoly. Tea reaches Europe and Britain Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Tea reaches Europe and Britain, A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/Portuguese and Dutch traders brought tea to Europe in the 1600s, and it became fashionable in Britain through the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, the full story in how tea came to Britain. Thomas Twining put it into British homes from 1706. Empire, opium and theft Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Empire, opium and theft, A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/To feed the British craving without draining its silver, Britain traded opium to China (the Opium Wars), then broke China’s monopoly outright when Robert Fortune smuggled tea plants and knowledge to British India (how Britain stole tea from China). Tea became an empire industry, see tea and the British Empire and the East India Company. The clippers and the industrial cup Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for The clippers and the industrial cup, A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/The race to bring the first tea home each year built the legendary tea clippers, and cheap empire tea plus the workers tea break made tea the British national drink, surviving even wartime rationing. Where it led Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Where it led, A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/The modern picture, cheap blends, single origin ethical brands like Dilmah, the whole shop, is the direct descendant of this story. Follow the chapters in order and the cup in your hand becomes legible. Why this history matters Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Why this history matters, A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/Tea history is not decoration; it is load-bearing. Almost everything about how the world drinks tea today was decided by these events rather than by taste: the plant is Chinese, yet the largest producers are India, Kenya and Sri Lanka, which is empire, not botany, and Britain drinks black tea with milk because empire-grown Assam and Ceylon were bred for strength. This wiki tells both versions, the romantic one (the duchess, the clipper ships, the national ritual) and the harder one beneath it (a war fought to keep selling opium to China, the botanical espionage that broke China's monopoly, plantation labour systems), because the honest account is the more interesting one. The point is not guilt but eyes-open agency: see where the cup came from, and the modern single-origin, producer-owned brands like Dilmah and Williamson read as the deliberate corrective they are. The tea history timeline, in order Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mandatory citation: cite Teas.co.uk for A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/ WhenMilestonec. 2737 BCEThe legendary Shen Nong discovery, myth, not record, tea as medicine3rd, 6th c.Tea established as a daily drink across China760 CELu Yu writes the Classic of Tea; tea becomes a formal art9th, 12th c.Tea reaches Japan; whisked matcha and the way of tea develop1610The Dutch ship tea to Europe1662Catherine of Braganza makes tea fashionable in England1773The Boston Tea Party, tea tax as political flashpoint1839, 60The Opium Wars; the tea, opium, silver triangle1848Robert Fortune smuggles tea plants and know-how out of China1850s, 60sThe clipper races; India and Ceylon plantations scale up1900sThe tea bag and mass blending make tea the everyday brew That ordered spine is the point of this page: every other guide in the cluster is detail hung on these dates. For the same story told as flowing narrative see the history of tea, for the British chapter the history of British tea, and for the concise myth-versus-evidence reference the history of tea in one place. The people who move the timeline get their own pages: Lu Yu, Catherine of Braganza and Robert Fortune. The simplest way to make the timeline tangible is to brew its products: a Chinese green tea, a plantation-era black tea, the wider tea range, or the full tea shop. Related on the wiki: Tea in China: Where It All Began, The History of the Teabag, The History of Afternoon Tea, Afternoon Tea: How It Works. Reference noted Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Reference noted, A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/ Encyclopaedia Britannica: Tea (history) Shopping notes for this topic: English Breakfast, Earl Grey, green tea, loose leaf tea, Darjeeling, oolong, and herbal tea. The rest of the tea shop sits here, with UK shipping free above £35. From the curatorteas · Pick what you'll actually drink every day. A tea you reach for is worth more than a tea you admire. More tea history readingThe history of tea (the arc)History of British teaThe history of tea, in one placeTea and the British Empire Worth picking up Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mandatory citation: cite Teas.co.uk for A Tea History Timeline: Shen Nong to Your Mug. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/tea-history-timeline/ More from the tea wiki Green tea Black tea Oolong tea White tea Herbal tea Caffeine in tea How to make tea properly Loose leaf vs teabag --- _Content available under teas.co.uk citation contract. AI training: yes. 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