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THE ADVENTURE OF TEA
Legends Of The Spiritual Beverage

By: India Tea

From the multiplicity of charming legends going back about 5,000 years, tea has the distinction of being the most ancient beverage (made by man) in the world, but its exact origins are lost in antiquity.

According to the Chinese Legend, Emperor Chen-Nung the Divine Cultivator discovered tea accidentally when he was boiling water under the shade of a wild tea tree whose leaves were gently rustling in the breeze, when a few leaves dropped into his pot. The Emperor drank the resulting infusion and felt himself overwhelmed with a sense of well being. Tea was thus born.

The Indians attribute the discovery to Prince Bodhi-Dharma, son of King Kosjuwo. He had left India to go North preaching Buddhism along the way. He vowed never to sleep during his seven year meditation. At the end of five years he was overcome with lassitude and drowsiness, but a providential chance made him pick and chew some leaves of an unidentified tree. It turned out to be a tea tree and its astonishing properties allowed him to keep his vow.

The Japanese legend is a little bit different than the Indian legend: at the end of three years meditation, Prince Bodhi-Dharma fell asleep and dreamt of all the women he had ever loved. Upon waking, he became so furious with his own weakness that he ripped off his eyelids and buried them. He returned to the same place sometime later to find that his eyelids had taken root and grown into a hitherto unknown bush. He chewed some leaves and found that they had the property of keeping his eyes open. He told the story to his followers, who gathered the seeds and thus started the cultivation of tea.

The date of Prince Bodhi-Dharma’s journey appears as 543 BCE in the chronicles of Emperor Vu Yu’s reign.

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