Green tea originated in southwestern China, in the forests of what is now Yunnan Province. The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, grew wild in this region’s mountainous terrain, and written records show that Chinese ancestors began drinking tea over 3,000 years ago. From these subtropical forests, tea drinking spread across China, then to Japan and Korea, and eventually to the rest of the world.
The Forests of Yunnan Province
The tea plant evolved in the warm, humid forests in and around southwestern China. Today, the Xishuangbanna Prefecture in Yunnan Province still has ancient tea trees growing wild, some of them hundreds of years old, with many estimated at over a thousand. These aren’t cultivated plantings. They’re remnants of the original forests where the species first took root.
The plant eventually developed into two distinct varieties. The smaller-leafed variety, native to China, thrives in cooler highland climates and is the type traditionally used for green tea. A larger-leafed variety evolved separately in the Assam region of India, better suited to tropical lowland heat. Both belong to the same species, but the Chinese variety is the one that launched tea culture as we know it.
The Oldest Physical Evidence
For a long time, the earliest confirmed tea leaves dated to China’s Northern Song Dynasty, roughly 960 to 1127 CE. Then a 2016 study published in Scientific Reports pushed that date back dramatically. Researchers analyzed dried plant bundles found in the Han Yangling Mausoleum near Xi’an, the tomb of Emperor Jing of the Western Han Dynasty, who died in 141 BCE. Chemical testing confirmed the presence of caffeine, theanine (an amino acid unique to tea), and calcium plant crystals consistent with tea leaves. The finding established that Han Dynasty emperors were drinking tea as early as 2,100 years ago.
The same study found evidence that tea had reached the Tibetan Plateau by the second century CE, transported along an early branch of the Silk Road. This means tea was already a trade commodity well before most people assume.
From Medicine to Daily Drink
Tea likely started as medicine, not a casual beverage. Some scholars consider it the first Chinese herbal medicine, used long before it became something people drank for pleasure. In traditional Chinese medicine, different types of tea were believed to activate different systems in the body, and early consumption was closely tied to health rather than taste or social ritual.
A popular legend places the discovery even earlier. The story goes that in 2737 BCE, Emperor Shennong, a mythical herbalist-ruler, was boiling water with twigs from a wild Camellia tree when a gust of wind blew leaves into his cauldron. The infused water became the first cup of tea. The date is almost certainly symbolic rather than historical, but the legend reflects how deeply Chinese culture connects tea to both nature and medicine.
How Early Tea Was Prepared
The green tea you brew today in loose leaves or a teabag bears little resemblance to what people drank for most of tea’s history. During the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 CE), tea leaves were roasted, then ground into a coarse powder and mixed with hot water. The powder could also be compressed into bricks for storage and transport, which made it practical for trade along routes into Tibet and Central Asia. Loose-leaf tea as a standard format came much later. The core principle of green tea, using heat to stop the leaves from oxidizing and darkening, remained consistent, but the form kept changing.
Lu Yu and the Rise of Tea Culture
The single most important moment in tea’s cultural history was the publication of “The Classic of Tea” by Lu Yu in the 760s and 770s CE. This was the first book ever dedicated entirely to tea. Across ten chapters, Lu Yu covered everything: where tea grows, how to produce it, which tools and utensils to use, how to boil and drink it, and the history of tea up to his time. He systematically organized centuries of scattered knowledge into one reference.
The book’s impact went beyond documentation. Before Lu Yu, tea was largely a novelty for aristocrats and monks. The popularity of “The Classic of Tea” helped transform it into a drink for ordinary people across China. Lu Yu also elevated tea from a simple beverage into something with intellectual and spiritual meaning, essentially creating the concept of tea culture. His influence reached Japan and Korea, shaping how those countries would develop their own tea traditions.
How Tea Reached Japan
Tea seeds likely arrived in Japan as early as the late 700s. Some historians believe two little-known monks who spent the years from 750 through 778 studying in Tang Dynasty China may have been the first to carry seeds back to Nara. But the introduction is more commonly linked to two famous Buddhist monks: Saichō and Kūkai, each the founder of a major school of esoteric Buddhism in Japan.
Both monks traveled to China in 804 to study. Saichō returned in 805 or 806, Kūkai in 806. Both drank tea regularly while in China and are presumed to have brought seeds home. A written reference mentions “drinking tea” at the farewell party before Saichō’s departure. In 814, Kūkai wrote that he was “learning Indian writing while sitting and drinking tea.” The monks’ connection to tea helped establish it within Japan’s religious and aristocratic circles, where it would eventually evolve into the formal Japanese tea ceremony centuries later.
From China to the Rest of the World
Tea remained an exclusively East Asian product for most of its history. Portuguese and Dutch traders brought it to Europe in the late 1500s and early 1600s. By the 1700s, tea had become central to British culture and commerce, driving the establishment of tea plantations in India and Sri Lanka using the larger-leafed Assam variety. Green tea, however, stayed most closely associated with China and Japan, where the original small-leafed variety and traditional steaming methods preserved the style closest to what people in Yunnan’s mountains drank thousands of years ago.