THE BLUFFER'S GUIDE TO TEA

❑ According to legend, Emperor Shen Nung discovered tea in 2732BC when the wind blew leaves into a jug of boiling water. He named the brew ch’a.

❑ Tea was first imported into Europe by the Portuguese and Dutch in 1610.

❑ The brew became popular in England following the marriage of King Charles II to the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza. She was a tea lover who served it to her court.

❑ Until the middle of the 17th Century, all Chinese tea was green.

❑ Brits drink about 100 million cups of tea every day.

❑ Liverpudlians sup the most in the UK – about 1,460 cups, per person per year.

❑ Iced tea was first served in America at the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis, Missouri. A heatwave meant no one was interested in hot tea, so it was dumped in a tub of ice and served. Americans drink around 50 billion glasses of iced tea each year – about 80% of all tea drunk in the US.

❑ Tea contains polyphenols which mend cells and could help prevent cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, osteoporosis and other illnesses.

❑ There are more than 1,500 types of teas in the world and 3.7bn cups of it are consumed every day.

❑ It takes around 2,000 tiny leaves to make a pound of tea.

❑ In 1908, Thomas Sullivan, a New York tea salesman, sent his tea to restaurants and cafés in silk bags. He later discovered they had been brewing the tea still in the bags to save time – and that is how tea bags were invented.

❑ According to posh shop Fortnum and Mason, cheap china cups would crack when hot tea was poured in them, so putting the milk in first kept your cups in one piece.

❑ Tea was so valued in the 18th Century that it was kept in a locked chest – which has morphed into the tea caddy.

❑ Earl Grey is named after Charles, the 2nd Earl Grey who was Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834.

❑ There is no such thing as a mint tea – it is actually an infusion.

❑ Narrow ships – known as clippers – were used to transport tea around the globe in the mid-19th Century.

❑ The only complete clipper still in existence is the Cutty Sark, which has been in dry dock at Greenwich in southeast London since 1954.

❑ Darjeeling is known as the “Champagne of tea” and anyone selling it must get a licence from the Tea Board of India.