Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When was tea first brought to Europe?
Tea was first introduced to Europe by Italian traveler Giovanni Battista Ramusio, who in 1555 published Voyages and Travels, containing the first European reference to tea, which he calls "Chai Catai"; his accounts were based on second-hand reports.
Tasseography is a divination method, typically utilizing tea leaves or coffee grounds. Western tasseography first started in medieval Europe, where fortune tellers would interpret splatters of wax, lead, and various other molten substances. When the Dutch brought tea from China in the seventeenth century, this evolved into tea tasseography. Tasseography is typically performed in a bright colored cup to contrast with the dark tea leaves or coffee grounds. The bright colors symbolize good fortunes while the dark color symbolizes misfortunes.
Tea growing in Portugal takes place in the Azores, a group of islands located 1500 km west of Mainland Portugal. Portugal was the first to introduce the practice of drinking tea to Europe as well as the first European country to produce tea. 
From the end of the 17th century tea was shipped from China to Europe as part of the export of exotic spices and luxury goods. The ships that brought the tea also carried porcelain teapots.
The majority of these teapots were painted in blue and white underglaze.
Porcelain, being completely vitrified, will withstand sea water without damage, so the teapots were packed below deck whilst the tea was stowed above deck to ensure that it remained dry.
Generally, 4 grams of tea per 200 ml of water. Unlike green teas, which turn bitter when brewed at higher temperatures, black tea should be steeped in water brought up to 90–95 °C. The first brew should be 60 sec., the second brew 40 sec., and the third brew 60 sec. If your tea is of high quality, you can continue to brew by progressively adding 10 sec. to the brew time following the third infusion (note: when using a larger tea pot the ratio of tea to water will need to be adjusted to achieve similar results).
The first record of tea in English came from a letter written by Richard Wickham, who ran an East India Company office in Japan, writing to a merchant in Macao requesting "the best sort of chaw" in 1615. Peter Mundy, a traveller and merchant who came across tea in Fujian in 1637, wrote, ""chaa" – only water with a kind of herb boyled in it ". Tea was sold in a coffee house in London in 1657, Samuel Pepys tasted tea in 1660, and Catherine of Braganza took the tea-drinking habit to the British court when she married Charles II in 1662. Tea, however, was not widely consumed in Britain until the 18th century, and remained expensive until the latter part of that period. British drinkers preferred to add sugar and milk to black tea, and black tea overtook green tea in popularity in the 1720s. Tea smuggling during the 18th century led to the general public being able to afford and consume tea. The British government removed the tax on tea, thereby eliminating the smuggling trade by 1785. In Britain and Ireland, tea was initially consumed as a luxury item on special occasions, such as religious festivals, wakes, and domestic work gatherings. The price of tea in Europe fell steadily during the 19th century, especially after Indian tea began to arrive in large quantities; by the late 19th century tea had become an everyday beverage for all levels of society. The popularity of tea also informed a number of historical events – the Tea Act of 1773 provoked the Boston Tea Party that escalated into the American Revolution, and the need to address the issue of British trade deficit caused by the demand for Chinese tea led to a trade in opium that resulted in the Opium Wars.
Dallmayr also offers over 120 different types of tea. Besides the classic black and green teas, numerous flavoured varieties and a selection of rooibos and fruit teas and herbal tea specialities from South Tyrol are available. Dallmayr is also amongst the first merchants in Germany to offer so-called "air freight" tea: The first flush of high-quality Darjeeling tea is internationally air-freighted directly after picking.
Under the business designation "Vending & Office", Dallmayr operates drinks and snack vending machines throughout Germany, across Europe and in the Far East. The first customer was the Munich automobile manufacturer, BMW, who in the 1960s positioned hot drinks vending machines in their production halls: Dallmayr supplied the coffee for these and took over the maintenance of the vending machines. Today, Dallmayr operates over 93,000 vending machines internationally and is therefore, according to their own data, the German market leader, and one of the five largest providers in Europe.
Tea was first introduced to Portuguese priests and merchants in China during the 16th century, at which time it was termed "chá". The earliest European reference to tea, written as "Chiai", came from "Delle navigationi e viaggi" written by a Venetian, Giambattista Ramusio, in 1545. The first recorded shipment of tea by a European nation was in 1607 when the Dutch East India Company moved a cargo of tea from Macao to Java, then two years later, the Dutch bought the first assignment of tea which was from Hirado in Japan to be shipped to Europe. Tea became a fashionable drink in The Hague in the Netherlands, and the Dutch introduced the drink to Germany, France and across the Atlantic to New Amsterdam (New York).
A tea caddy is a box, jar, canister, or other receptacle used to store tea. When first introduced to Europe, tea was extremely expensive, and kept under the eye of the mistress of the house, often under lock and key. The containers used were therefore often expensive and decorative, to fit in with the rest of a drawing-room or other reception room. Hot water was carried up from the kitchen, and the tea made by the mistress of the house, or under her supervision. 
It is known that the Japanese people started growing tea trees roughly 800 years ago when Buddhist monks who traveled to China brought back seeds. A historical document from the Nanboku-chō period, , mentions as one of the best regions for tea along with , , , , and . However, the production of tea was interrupted by war during the Sengoku period.
It is believed that the first tea bushes in Nepal were grown from seeds which were given as a gift by the Chinese Emperor to the then Prime Minister of Nepal, Jung Bahadur Rana. Nevertheless, Nepal's tea industry owes its roots to the colonization of India, by the world's first multinational company, the “East India Company”, under the British Empire. Around 1863, within a time span of 10 years after the first tea plantation was set up in Darjeeling, hybrids of tea bushes were brought, and the Nepal's first tea plantation, "Ilam Tea Estate" was set up in Ilam district, at an altitude of 4,500-5,000 feet above the sea level. Visioning better future prospects of the tea industry in Nepal, two years later a second tea plantation, "Soktim Tea Estate" was set up in the Jhapa district. Later into the 1900s the Nepalese tea producers acted as suppliers to Darjeeling factories when tea bushes became old and yields decreased.
The placename dates to the 19th century, when many English workers were brought over to work at Celbridge mill; the locals noted the large amounts of tea they drank, and the tealeaves that they threw into the roadway, and Church Lane was nicknamed "Tea Lane."
Tea use spread to Japan about the sixth century AD.[34] Tea became a drink of the religious classes in Japan when Japanese priests and envoys, sent to China to learn about its culture, brought tea to Japan. Ancient recordings indicate the first batch of tea seeds were brought by a priest named Saichō(最澄, 767–822) in 805 and then by another named Kūkai(空海, 774–835) in 806. It became a drink of the royal classes when Emperor Saga(嵯峨天皇), the Japanese emperor, encouraged the growth of tea plants. Seeds were imported from China, and cultivation in Japan began.
Rougui tea (; pronounced ) is a variety of the tea plant, commonly grown in the Wuyi Mountains and processed into oolong tea. The name literally means "cassia". The tea can be difficult to prepare, but its distinctive sweet aroma can be brought out up to 7 steepings. It was first developed during the Qing dynasty.
Although the history of the tea cosy may begin when tea was introduced to Britain in the 1660s, the first documented use of a tea cosy in Britain was in 1867. It is probably the Duchess of Bedford who, by establishing the activity of afternoon tea in 1840, would have brought the popularity of the tea cosy. Afternoon tea was the time for networking and keeping up to date with aristocracy gossip and topical news. With all the chatter at teatime the teapot would get cold, which would have at times cut short some tea parties. And so, the tea cosy came about. Tea cosies then flourished during the late 19th century, where they appeared in many households across Britain, motivated by the obsession of decorating and covering objects characteristic of the Victorian era. 
But plantation problems changed many ways Korean tea was governed. Unlike tea plantation areas in China or Japan, the climate of the Korean Peninsula is much colder and Tea harvesting season occurs just before the spring. So at that period, the tea tree forested areas in the mountains were still so cold and also dangerous because of wildlife. The old Korean name of tea, 설록("Sulloc", 雪綠), means the first flush tea leaf was harvested on the snow field of a mountain. This situation brought lots of trouble during the Goryeo Dynasty and Joseon Dynasty.
Tea seeds were first brought to Japan in the early 9th century by the Buddhist monks Saicho and Kukai. During the Heian period (794–1185), Emperor Saga introduced the practice of drinking tea to the imperial family. The Zen Buddhist priest Eisai (1141–1215), founder of the Rinzai school of Buddhism, brought tea seeds from China to plant in various places in Japan. Eisai advocated that all people, not just Buddhist monks and the elite, drink tea for its health benefits.
The China roses, based on "Rosa chinensis", have been cultivated in East Asia for centuries. They have been cultivated in Western Europe since the late 18th century. They contribute much to the parentage of today's hybrid roses, and they brought a change to the form of the flowers then cultivated in Europe. Compared with the older rose classes known in Europe, the Chinese roses had less fragrant, smaller blooms carried over twiggier, more cold-sensitive shrubs. However they could bloom repeatedly throughout the summer and into late autumn, unlike their European counterparts. The flowers of China roses were also notable for their tendency to "suntan," or darken over time unlike other blooms which tended to fade after opening. This made them highly desirable for hybridisation purposes in the early 19th century. According to Graham Stuart Thomas, China roses are the class upon which modern roses are built. Today's exhibition rose owes its form to the China genes, and the China roses also brought slender buds which unfurl when opening. Tradition holds that four "stud China" roses—'Slater's Crimson China' (1792), 'Parsons' Pink China' (1793), and the Tea roses 'Hume's Blush Tea-scented China' (1809) and 'Parks' Yellow Tea-scented China' (1824)—were brought to Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; in fact there were rather more, at least five Chinas not counting the Teas having been imported. This brought about the creation of the first classes of repeat-flowering Old Garden Roses, and later the Modern Garden Roses. Examples: 'Old Blush China', 'Mutabilis' (Butterfly Rose), 'Cramoisi Superieur'.
Zhang Wu Zhi /On Tea Eisai (Yosai) came to Tiantai mountain of Zhejiang to study Chan (Zen) buddhism (1168 AD); when he returned home in 1193 AD, he brought tea from China to Japan, planted it and wrote the first Japanese treatise on tea, called "Kissa yojoki" (喫茶養生記, "Treatise on Drinking Tea for Health"). This was the beginning of tea cultivation and tea culture in Japan.
The first Japanese contact with tea most likely occurred in the Nara period (710–794), when Japan sent several diplomatic missions to Chang'an, the capital of China's Tang dynasty (618–907). These early delegations brought back knowledge of Chinese culture and practices, as well as paintings, literature, and other artifacts. The "Chakyō Shōsetsu" indicates that Emperor Shōmu served powdered tea to a hundred monks in 729, but there is some uncertainty regarding the reliability of the text.
Some settlers attempted to grow tea, which was then an expensive, yet the most popular non-alcoholic beverage in Russia. The early attempts in the 1870s and 1880s failed because of the cold climate, and the first success was achieved in the early 1900s by the Ukrainian peasant Judas Antonovich Koshman (1838–1935). Koshman previously worked for a tea factory in Adjara, a place south to Sochi on the Black Sea coast. That tea was known in Russia but its taste was unpopular. In 1901, Koshman brought seeds of tea plants from Adjara to Solokhaul – a village near Dagomys – and developed a brand which was not only resistant to cold but also had a rich taste. The first successful plantation is dated to 1905. This new tea later became the distinct brand of Krasnodarsky Tea, which is the most prominent Russia-grown tea and is one of the northernmost teas in the world. The house of Koshman still stands in Solokhaul along with the tea bushes planted by his hands.
The history of tea in Japan began as early as the 9th century, when the first known references to tea were made in Japanese records. Tea became a drink of the religious classes in Japan when Japanese priests and envoys sent to China to learn about its culture brought tea to Japan. The Buddhist monks Kūkai and Saichō may have been the first to bring tea seeds to Japan. The first form of tea brought from China was probably brick tea. Tea became a drink of the royal classes when Emperor Saga, the Japanese emperor, encouraged the growth of tea plants. Seeds were imported from China, and cultivation in Japan began.
The First Flush Tea Festival was an annual festival hosted by the Charleston Tea Plantation marking the start of the tea harvesting season. The name, First Flush, means the new leaves that are beginning to grow on the tea plant bushes that are ready to be harvested for production. The plantation served the visitors the first tea produced in the new season for free by allowing them the chance to taste it in hopes of pulling in new customers. The plantation also brought in local food vendors to set up booths and local musicians to entertain the crowds. There was always an area for kids as well, including a playground or jump castle. The festival began in 2006 and ended after the ninth annual First Flush Festival.
Chinese small leaf type tea was introduced into India in 1836 by the British in an attempt to break the Chinese monopoly on tea. In 1841, Archibald Campbell brought seeds of Chinese tea from the Kumaun region and experimented with planting tea in Darjeeling. The Alubari tea garden was opened in 1856 and Darjeeling tea began to be produced. In 1848, Robert Fortune was sent by the East India Company on a mission to China to bring the tea plant back to Great Britain. He began his journey in high secrecy as his mission occurred in the lull between the Anglo-Chinese First Opium War (18391842) and Second Opium War (18561860). The Chinese tea plants he brought back were introduced to the Himalayas, though most did not survive. The British had discovered that a different variety of tea was endemic to Assam and the northeast region of India and that it was used by the local Singpho people, and these were then grown instead of the Chinese tea plant and then were subsequently hybridized with Chinese small leaf type tea as well as likely closely related wild tea species. Using the Chinese planting and cultivation techniques, the British launched a tea industry by offering land in Assam to any European who agreed to cultivate it for export. Tea was originally consumed only by anglicized Indians; however, it became widely popular in India in the 1950s because of a successful advertising campaign by the India Tea Board.
In 1824 a tea plant was brought(smuggled) to Ceylon by the British from China and was planted in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya for non-commercial purposes. Further experimental tea plants were brought from Assam and Calcutta in India to Peradeniya in 1839 through the East India Company and over the years that followed. In 1839 the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce was established followed by the Planters' Association of Ceylon in 1854. In 1867, James Taylor marked the birth of the tea industry in Ceylon by starting a tea plantation in the Loolecondera ("Pronounced Lul-Ka(n)dura" in Sinhala -ලූල් කඳුර ) estate in Kandy in 1867. He was only 17 when he came to Loolkandura, Sri Lanka. The original tea plantation was just . In 1872 Taylor began operating a fully equipped tea factory on the grounds of the Loolkandura estate and that year the first sale of Loolecondra tea (Loolkandura) was made in Kandy. In 1873, the first shipment of Ceylon tea, a consignment of some , arrived in London. 
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle remarked on the establishment of the tea plantations, "…the tea fields of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the lion at Waterloo".