Tea, the beverage, is the second most widely consumed drink in the world, exceeded only by water. In many cases today, as in ancient times, tea is safer to drink than water because it is boiled first, killing any disease-carrying bacteria. By most reports, tea was first consumed as a beverage in China, sometime between 2700 B.C and 220 A.D. Tea began to travel as a trade item as early as the fifth century, with some sources indicating Turkish traders bartering for tea on the Mongolian border. Tea made it’s way to Japan late in the sixth century, along with another famous Chinese export: Buddhism. By the end of the sixth century, Buddhist monks were planting tea in Japan. 99% of commercially available Green tea comes from Japan. All tea, regardless of it’s origin, is the Camellia sinensis plant. Left to it’s own devices, tea plants will grow into a substantial tree (up to 40 feet.) On the farms, a few are allowed to do so for the purpose of growing seeds. - For tea production, it is necessary to train the tea plants into bushes, and great care is taken to create a shape that lends itself to consistent picking, or plucking. This process, called frame formation, is achieved through pruning, and pegging. Pegging is the practice of bending some branches down, and pegging them into position. This flattened area is referred to as the “plucking table.” Tea is an indigenous plant throughout the forests of Southeast Asia. Tea’s origins lie in an indefinite area to the Southeast of the Tibetan plateau, including Szechuan, Yunnan, Burma, Siam, and Northern India. From these original locations, tea has spread throughout the world and today is cultivated in areas as diverse as Washington state on the West coast of the U.S and Guatemala in Central America. The small-leafed China plant remains fairly true-bred and has avoided much of the crossbreeding and hybridization typical of modern agriculture. China is the birthplace of tea, and there is vast diversity in leaf style and grade here. Some famous provinces for tea production are: Anhui, Fujian, Yunnan, Zhejiang. The incredible diversity here is worth exploring.