A brief history on how tea fashion reflected the progression of women's rights through the late 19th century into the early 20th century.

Entire books have been written about the drama, conflict, and greed involving clipper ships during the height of the 19th century. This article touches on mere highlights of the tea clipper trade between only China and the U.K. circa 1843 to 1869.

A brief history of tea and how it helped ignite the American Revolution!

Taking a look at the history of tea in Kenya, a peek at their tea culture, and two great recipes!

One marked difference between Asian tea cups is they have no handles while Western cups have a looped handle on one side of the cup. Ever wonder why? Learn more here!

The history of the teabag dates to the 19th century and has seen a lot of change since its invention. Which one reigns supreme?

From hot to iced, straight or as a latte, there are many ways to drink chai. Throughout the years, chai has become a drink that's loved by many, and a big part of tea culture. Have you ever wondered about the history behind chai and how it has evolved into the beverage we're sipping today? Keep reading to learn more about chai.

Ever wondered about the littel clay animals you see on a ceremonial tea tray? Alyssa helps us uncover the history and tradition of these cute tea companions.

Have you ever wondered where tisanes come from and how they became popular? You’re in luck! New contributing author Alyssa teaches us about the history of tisanes and why they’re still consumed today.

Is the tea set gathering dust in your cupboard valuable? Learn some tips and hints to discover if your set is worth something, or what to look for when you're scouring the antique and thrift stores for the once-in-a-lifetime find!

Clearly, Today’s Teapots are Treasures! From Iron to Glass, Tea Vessels Evolve.

Looking for something delicate yet flavorful? White teas are the answer. With a lower level of caffeine, they offer a softer pep-in-your step, and they look beautiful brewing in glass pots or cups! Learn about their history, and check out some of our favorites!

Everyone’s idea of a classic, black teas are legion, luxurious, and live up to their legendary reputation. Try some from every country that produces them!

Yak Butter?! Adding a little butter and/or your favorite natural oil to your morning brew became a popular trend a few years ago when "bulletproof coffee" burst onto the scene. What is the real origin of this trend? In far-flung Tibetan culture, yak butter tea has been known as as the national drink of choice for centuries. This modern trend has a fascinating, ancient and scientific history that predates any Western health buzz.

A biscotti dunked into a coffee, a madeleine slipped into a cup of chamomile, a British biscuit doused in a cup of Earl Grey. What is it about dunking a cookie into liquid that has appeal around the world?

It is alleged that it was Shen Nung, the Emperor and herbalist of ancient China (2700 BC,) who first sipped a few leaves that had floated down from a nearby tree into a kettle of boiling water. Those leaves were green, fresh, and their intoxicating fragrance made the emperor curious enough to taste the resulting beverage. That was the beginning of tea drinking in China but it wasn’t until the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) that tea became the national drink of China.

Grown in Mainland China since the early Qing era, namely in Fujian (in the north in Minbei, and the south in Minnan) and in Guangdong, oolong teas go by several names: oolong, wulong, Formosa, and by particular varietals or processing styles, like Ti Kwan Yin and Pouchong.

If you scroll through the Signature Blends series on Adagio.com, you’ll find that you are not the only one! With over 100,000 blends housed on the website—currently 103,685 blends square—there are literally thousands of ways to explore your passion through flavor.

Imagine your first cup of Darjeeling tea. The aroma greats you with a soft flowery scent. The taste is delicate with a fruity apricot peach flavor. You have just experienced a tea like no other. Darjeeling first flush spring tea is widely regarded as some of the worlds finest black tea.

What do these initials and words mean? And, why don’t all tea-growing countries use them? Of the more than 35 countries which produce tea, Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and India are the primary users of these designations in all their tea-growing areas to describe broken or full tea leaves, leaf position, and words for their appearance and fragrance.

Documentation of tea tools such as the tea strainer appear in ancient history, the earliest models were likely made of bamboo, and later evolved into stainless steel, sterling silver, china, porcelain, silicon, and linen. However, using a tea tool to keep run away tea leaves out of a cup did not become a cited use of the strainer until the 17th century when Dutch merchants made tea more readily available to those outside of the Chinese dynasty.

In the late 1700s and 1800s, alcohol consumption in the UK was widespread and rowdy. Gin and beer were England's go-to liquid consumables at the time, tag-teaming the Victorian's into a perpetual drunkenness. But along came the steaming glorious savior, that cheap precious drink of a divine nature itself, which we so heartily refer to as Tea.

As more and more people search for caffeinated alternatives to coffee, plant based tisanes are gaining traction for their health benefits. They have the ability to soothe and heal as they energize. As a result, tisanes containing caffeine are imported around the world to satisfy enormous demand. Yaupon is more recently finding many happy tea drinkers who love it for its caffeine, antioxidants, and its harmonious presence in the local-foods movement.

This year, 2015, is the 150th anniversary of the publication of "Alice in Wonderland" and tea lovers around are sharing their love of this enduring (and endearing) tale. Like many classic children's books, Alice is more- much more- than it seems. It charms on two levels. For children, it's a phantasmagorically rich story sprinkled with nonsense. And, for adults, it's a droll satire of Victorian manners with a nod to the lack of food safety during that era.

MATCHA: A Critical Part of the Shogun Tradition of Bun (Art) and Bu (Arms)

On June 4th, 2014, Adagio celebrates fifteen years since the first order was placed on our website. To celebrate this milestone, and the customers that helped us reach it, we created a photo mosaic out of our customer profile images and hung that across a wall in our office.

It may be difficult to believe this in the 21st century but barely 400 years ago, tea was thought by some British to be "pernicious," or harmful to society. Noted authors and religious leaders drew venomous conclusions and railed openly against the growing tea trade...

Following the March 11th earthquake and subsequent problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, reports surfaced of radiation in the Japanese food supply. After immediate concern for the Japanese people, many people began to wonder: how will this affect tea?

Climate change will impact crops around the world in many different ways, from the amount of rainfall an area receives to shifts in temperature and overall climate patterns. What might happen to our favorite crop, tea?

It's that time of year again! Weight loss is a popular resolution made this time of year and many products offer miracle results, unnaturally fast results. This article debunks the myths you might have come across- get informed!

If you're looking for a break during your busy holiday season, why not host an Afternoon Tea? It's easy and affordable with simple elegance. Learn more about this English tea tradition in this article and feel free to share your knowledge at your next tea party!

Intrigued by the mysterious oolong? This article will demystify and perhaps pique your interest about this special tea. Lately, it is being toted around as a weight-loss miracle, but don't be fooled. Enjoy reading the facts about everyone's new favorite tea.

Ever wonder how Adagio Tea's started? Here is a brief history of the company, and the founders, brother Michael and Ilya. See where we came from, and our plans for the future.

Whether we offer tea to a weary traveler or invite a guest to a fancy tea party, the act of opening our hearts and homes to another touches the essence of our humanness. The sharing of tea provides nourishment, creates comfort, and puts all at ease.

I was recently approached by the U.S. National Archives Dept. and asked to contribute a few words for a new exhibit on tea and early Philadelphia. The exhibit, based in the Philadelphia Archives Building, has since been completed and opened to the public through November 2005.

A primer portraying American progress in the world of tea.

Let me tell you that unlike many aspects of Einstein's life, there is no mystery about this fact. Einstein drank both coffee and tea... even once simultaneously....

Dear Santa, This year, my holiday wishes have changed. I've decided not to ask for a puppy again (as this request has gone unrequited for our past two correspondences), but instead have found something even more desirable: tea.

Deep in the heart of South Africa, in the mountains and valleys of the Cedarberg region near Cape Town, vast vistas, fields of verdant green bushes, fill the landscape. Traveling throughout this precipitous expanse, one may not suspect that this bright bush, which the locals refer to as "Rooibos," (pronounced roy-boss), could be such a versatile and remarkable herb.

A reader wrote recently to say she was stumped to figure out a five-letter word for tea. She had come up with B_H_A but wasn't sure how to complete the word. Had she been an 18th century poetry lover, she would have surely known the answer: BOHEA, a black tea from China that at the time enchanted both Europe and its colonies across the pond.

Jenaer Glas makes among the finest consumer glass items in the world. Its stylish teapots are rightly considered works of art, with some on display in renowned art museums. On a recent trip to Jena, Germany, the university town that the company calls home, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it has an interesting history that is worth telling.

Tea had become England's national drink by 1800 and she was importing an average of twenty-four million pounds a year, it is said. It is now time for me to admit that all figures relating to earlier tea consumption in England are merely official, which is to say, misleading.

The main problem with Dareeling tea is quantity: there will never be enough to satisfy demand. The region is small and produces much less per acre than Assam, for instance. It is colder and higher, growth is slow, and the crop devilishly difficult to harvest.

The year 2002 was another year of phenomenal growth for the tea industry and an exciting one for consumers. The reason? Increased attention to quality, variety, and the finalization of U.S.-approved criteria for organic produce, including tea.

For sheer majesty, the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries offered few sights to compare with the a fleet of East Indiamen gliding down the English Channel, twenty or more great three-masters under clouds of canvas escorted by frigates of the Royal Navy busily flagging signals.

Various Buddhists are sometimes given credit for the discovery of tea. A contemporary of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Confucius, the Buddha lived in India in the 500s BCE. While there can be no one simple explanation for China's nationwide adoption of the tea habit, it is clear that the Chinese themselves associated it with the introduction and spread of the Buddhadharma.

Like its Pacific Rim neighbors, Japan, China, and Indochina, Korea is also a tea-drinking country with a rich ceremonial tea culture. Also like them, Korea owes its tea heritage to the enthusiasm and devotion of Buddhist monks who traveled the globe spreading the opportunity for enlightenment and the special alertness that tea contributes to the meditation process.

In the history of tea, as in much else, the doughty Dutch tend to get overlooked by historians writing about their more numerous neighbors. But in civilization as well as seamanship and commerce they were second to none of these neighbors in the centuries of exploration.

Apart from a stray Marco Polo or so, very few Occidentals and Orientals had ever met face to face before Vasco da Gama of Portugal sailed around Africa's Cape of Good Hope and reached India in 1498.

The Victorian art critic John Ruskin once said, "to see a thing and tell it in plain words is the greatest thing a soul can do" - and that's exactly what Lu Yu did. Lu Yu if his biographers are to be believed, was an orphan raised by Buddhist monks. As an adolescent, he rebelled (as who does not?) against the pieties and practices of his received religion.

As in most cultures that achieve a high measure of wealth, the Japanese suddenly found themselves with the luxury of time to devote to art, music, and other cultural experiences. Among these experiences was the beginning of the tea ceremony, Sado or Chado.

Considered the father of modern advertising, Thomas J. Lipton was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1850. At the age of fifteen he traveled to the United States with less than eight dollars in his pocket. After working on a Virginia tobacco farm, a rice plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, and a streetcar in New Orleans, Lipton got a job in a department store's grocery in New York City.

A stretch of Canton waterfront eight hundred yards long by forty yards deep was as much space as the Yellow Emperor would allow Europe's eager traders. From 1685 to 1834 the transactions completed on this waterfront accounted for well over a quarter of all profits earned by the English East India Company, the IBM or General Motors of its day. Tea comprised 70-90 percent of all China's exports.

Specialty tea businesses in the United States have mushroomed recently, catering to both veteran tea drinkers and trying to mint new ones. In this culinary niche dominated by imports, few people are familiar with the Charleston Tea Plantation.

Steam, smelly steam, brought the tea trade into the industrial age. An age-old handmade product could now be manufactured by steam-powered machinery and delivered (via Suez) by steamships in half the time of the fastest, most glamorous clipper ship, which required a picked crew, a high freight rate, and a lot of luck.

For the Victorians, the afternoon tea party was an absolutely crucial part of social life. Ladies called on their friends for small intimate drawing room teas at which a group of four or five guests caught up with the latest gossip, sipped tea and nibbled a sandwich or two. Or they gathered in their tens to even hundreds to chatter and drink tea together at grand tea receptions held in the vast houses of the leisured and idle rich.

One swelteringly hot day, during the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, a tea vendor couldn't entice anyone to try his teas despite the fact that hot tea is served during warm months in his native land. Feeling the humidity, and the rebuff, acutely, he asked for some ice from the neighboring ice cream vendor, put some into a cup of tea, and voila!

When Song Dynasty emperor Hui Zhong proclaimed white tea to be the culmination of all that is elegant, he set in motion the evolution of an enchanting variety. For centuries white tea has been shrouded in obscurity outside of China, but today its much-beloved qualities are being discovered by tea lovers around the world.

Second only to tea, perhaps the most important contribution China made to European life was "china" itself - the hard translucent glazed pottery the Chinese had invented under the Tang dynasty and which we also know as porcelain. China had long since exported porcelain over the Silk Route to Persia and Turkey and fine examples of pre-1500 china are still in everyday use there.

Language was not the major obstacle to doing business with the Chinese-currency was. The goods the British had to offer in trade were mainly English broadcloth, not much wanted in semitropical Canton and not allowed for sale in bitterly cold north China, where woolen cloth might have been welcome. For the difference between what they bought and what they sold, the Chinese required payment in silver.

Although Americans still prefer their tea iced (85%) and black (90%) and scented or fruit flavored (35%), the continuing reportage of the health benefits of tea has encouraged the public to sample camellia sinensis, particularly green teas.

Although today we know for certain that tea is good for us, it hasn't always been like that. Over the years, some people have condemned it as poisonous and dangerous stuff; others have praised it as the best possible thing for the health and wealth of any nation.

"Who knows," a prominent merchant named John Rowe asked just before the meeting adjourned, "how tea will mix with salt water?" Whether this was a prearranged signal or not, it was answered by war whoops from a party of men, variously estimated from twenty to ninety, disguised as Mohawk Indians...

As expected of good colonists everywhere, the American colonists did their damnedest to ape the fashions of their mother countries. Thus when the English relieved the Dutch of New Amsterdam and re-christened it New York in 1674, they found themselves in possession of a colony that probably drank more tea than all England put together. The directors of John Company must have delighted to watch as the demand grew in America over the following decades.

The eighteenth century produced far and away the most amusing and attractive society that England has ever known. It was a society addicted to among other things, tea. They must have drunk that first ship's load down and sent it back for more at once, for by 1725, England was using a quarter million pounds of tea a year.

As the Europeans began trading tea with China in the early 17th century, and for the next two hundred years, all the activity of selecting the most suitable teas, haggling over the price, loading the chests on to the waiting cargo ships, and completing all the necessary paperwork went on in the port of Canton, forty miles inland on the Chinese river Zheijiang.

If you love tea and you find yourself in Paris, sooner or later (probably sooner) you'll make your way to the most fabulous French tearoom of all: Mariage Frères. There you'll be dazzled by the selection of more than 500 teas, the colonial décor of potted palms and natural rattan, the handsome waiters all in white, and the extensive menu of quiches, salads, cakes and scones, many flavored with tea.

About the time that first tea order from the Dutch Lords Seventeen reached their agent in the Orient, the Mogul emperor of north India (what is now Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere), was entertaining the first agent or ambassador from his fellow despot to the north, Czar Michael Romanov, the founder of Russia's Romanov dynasty...

The English ceremony of Afternoon Tea dates back to the 1840s but rather than being 'invented', it actually evolved out of the rituals and routines that had surrounded tea drinking in Britain before that time.

When the Dutch brought the first tea to Europe in 1610, England's Good Queen Bess had been dead seven years, Shakespeare had six years to live, and Rembrandt was four years old.

Queen Elizabeth was facing an important decision of her reign. Her valiant little navy had broken the Spanish Armada, but in international commerce the Spanish remained supreme in the West, just as Portugal was rivaled only by the Dutch in the East. As a lady with a wardrobe of three thousand costumes, mostly made of Oriental fabrics, Elizabeth was in a position to guess at the enormous profits to be had from direct trade for such goods with the Far East...

Tea has a colorful history. As we all know it is an ancient beverage, whose healthful benefits have been enjoyed for thousands of years. It's also true that almost every culture has its own tea-based etiquette and methodology for serving.

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden...

Prior to the 1860s, Ceylon's main crop was coffee and no grower showed much interest in tea. Today, Sri Lanka (Ceylon's post-colonial name) is the world's largest exporter of tea. The two men most responsible for this transformation are James Taylor and Sir Thomas Lipton.

Along with the heads of Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette, another casualty of the French Revolution was tea. Yes, really. It's a little known fact, but after its introduction to Europe in the 17th century tea was tremendously popular in France.

We're still impressed when a person will not give something up "for all the tea in China." Recent times, however, have made this amount less impressive than in the past. In the twenty five years since the Chinese government reformed agriculture on the mainland, tea production has suffered in both quantity and quality.

Like much of written history, the history of women's roles in tea commerce have often been downplayed. Other than the frequently repeated tale of Anna, Duchess of Bedford, conceiving the idea of afternoon tea in England, most of us don't think about the feminine contribution to the tea business.

Long before the commercial production of tea started in India in the late 1830s, the tea plant was growing wild in the jungles of north east Assam. In 1598, a Dutch traveller, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, noted in a book about his adventures that the Indians ate the leaves as a vegetable with garlic and oil and boiled the leaves to make a brew...