224 Osborne Street, Winnipeg, MB R3L1Z3 (204) 452-1148 teastorycafeosborne@gmail.com

tea stories

Every tea has a story; let’s start a wonderful tea journey together…

The history of tea is long and complex, spreading across multiple cultures over the span of thousands of years.

According to most of historical documents, tea was first discoveries in Yunnan Province, China around 2737 BC by Shennong, the legendary Emperor of China and inventor of agriculture and Chinese medicine. One day, he was drinking a bowl of just boiled water when a few leaves were blown from a nearby tree into his water, changing the color. The emperor took a sip of the brew and was pleasantly surprised by its flavor and restorative properties. A variant of the legend tells that the emperor tested the medical properties of various herbs on himself, some of them poisonous, and found tea to work as an antidote. If he consumed a poisonous plant, he would chew tea leaves to counteract the poison.

Until Song Dynasty (960-1279), tea was included many loose-leaf styles and steaming tea leaves was the primary process used for centuries in the preparation of tea. In the mid-13th century, the Chinese learned to process tea in a different way. Tea leaves were roasted and then crumbled rather than steamed. This is the origin of today’s loose teas and the practice of brewed tea.

We have named one of our premium loose leaf green tea latte “Love tea 2737” to celebrate the year tea was first discovered.