The Beginning of the Story…

It is written in Classic of Tea that, “Tea drinking began with Shen Nong and actively developed by the Duke of Zhou.” Shen Nong, also known as the God of Medicine, was an emperor of China. Shen Nong is credited for identifying hundreds of medical and poisonous herbs by personally testing their properties. Legend holds that Shen Nong had a transparent belly so he could see the effects of different plants and herbs on himself.

There are various stories about how Shen Nong discovered tea as the antidote for poisonous herbs. One story says that when he tasted the fresh tea leaves one day, he found the leaves moved around inside his belly as if they were inspecting. So he named it “zha” (meaning: check) and as time went on, it became “cha” (meaning: tea). The second story says Shen Nong was poisoned by herbs and almost died under a tree, luckily he was revived by fresh dew on the leaves which dropped into his mouth and thus he found the medicinal value of tea. There’s also another story says when Shen Nong was boiling a pot of water under a tree, some tea leaves fell into the hot water. After he drank it, all his ailments and toxins disappeared, hence the curative effect of tea is discovered.

Sheng Nong, painted by Guo Xu in 1503

Just as Shen Nong discovered thousands of years ago, it is not difficult to learn the benefits tea has towards human bodies from many of the modern researches. But more interestingly, unlike the fathomable statistics and analyses, how tea enriches our life and mind is more than beyond measure. That’s the most fascinating part of tea and is also where our story begins.