Shen Nung

Emperor Shen Nung was determined to enlighten his people to the virtues of discipline and wholesome living. He passed strict laws to expedite enlightenment. Citizens of China were ordered to boil all water before drinking, for reasons of purity.

Shen Nung frequently toured his country, observing farmers in their fields, tasting plants, sleeping upon the earth, and spreading the healthy word. One evening, as the Emperor's servant boiled water for his master to drink, leaves from a nearby tree fell into the water. Shen Nung noticed that the leaves had stained the water. Being an avid herbalist, he tasted the infusion. And he pronounced it good.

The tree that shed leaves into Shen Nung's water was the wild ancestor of Camellia sinensis, the source of all modern tea (excepting herbal infusions).

Shen Nung immediately commenced the large-scale cultivation of tea in China. The people of China, trusting of their benevolent Emperor, began drinking tea in earnest.

After water, tea is the most-consumed beverage on Earth. 

Circa 800 AD, Lu Yu wrote the Ch'a Ching, the Bible of tea in China. In it he documented, exhaustively, the cultivation and preparation of Chinese tea, and defined a style of tea service which reflected the principles and aesthetics of Chinese Zen Buddhism. When Buddhist missionaries moved into Japan, they carried tea, believing it "conducive to religious meditation."

The Japanese went for tea in a big way, refining the Chinese manner of tea service into an elaborate art form: cha-no-yu, meaning "hot water for tea." 

"Your legs ache, your back hurts...You pass out before you get to take a sip," Patterson chuckles, describing the Japanese Tea Ceremony.