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One cup of tea helped start a revolt, a race between the fastest ships on Earth, a war and a daring plant heist. Explore how a bitter leaf from China’s misty mountains ended up in almost every cup on the planet.
Today people drink about five billion cups of tea every day. But green, black, oolong and white tea all come from the same shrub, Camellia sinensis. Follow the leaf from the legend of Shennong and 2,100-year-old buds in a Han emperor’s tomb to Tang tea cakes traded for horses, whisked Song foam and the Japanese tea ceremony, the Ming emperor’s loose leaves, the Boston Tea Party, the clipper races, the Opium War and Robert Fortune’s disguise, all the way to tea bags, iced tea, masala chai and bubble tea.
Written and animated by Dembly Explains
Chapters
0:00 How did tea conquer the world?
0:32 One leaf, many teas
1:09 Legend and archaeology
1:46 Cakes on the road: the Tang dynasty
2:20 Whisked foam and the tea ceremony
2:53 The emperor’s loose leaves
3:20 Tea sails west
4:08 Silver, opium and a tea heist
5:02 Tea today
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