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34
HISTORY.
thousand
years'
cultivation
a
great
number
of
varieties
had
sprung
forth
from
this
one
kind.
The
tea
shrub
grows
in
its
wild
state
6
to
10
metres
high;
while
the
cultivated
shrub
reaches
a
height
of
not
more
than
2
metres,
or
6
feet.
The
cultivation
of
tea,
according
to
Chinese
tradi-
tions
of
the
fourth
century,
came
from
Corea
to
China,
and
from
there
to
Japan
in
the
ninth
century.
About
the
sixth
century
the
Chinese
used
to
drink
tea
nearly
all
over
their
country.
The
Europeans
have
tried
to
plant
and
cultivate
the
tea-shrub
in
Bengal,
Ceylon,
on
the
western
coast
of
Africa,
in
Java
and
Sumatra,
in
Brazil,
and
many
other
places.
In
all
these
districts
the
shrub
grows,
but
is
degenerated
detrimentally,
as
its
aroma
never
reaches
that
of
the
genuine
Chinese
tea.
The
method
of
extracting
the
tein
by
boiling
water
has
been
known
in
China
as
long
as
the
cultivation
of
the
shrub;
the
Europeans,
however,
learned
it
very
late,
first
by
the
Dutch
East
India
Company,
about
the
middle
of
the
seventeenth
century,
although
the
first
importation
of
tea
to
Europe
had
taken
place
already
in
the
year
1636.
England
got
its
first
tea
in
the
year
1666.
The
consumption
of
it
increased
continually,
and
was
general
in
the
eighteenth
century.
Although
tea
was
believed
for
a
long
while
a
sure
and
reliable
drug
for
lengthening
life,
the
habit
of
tea-drinking
is
not
so
widely
spread
as
that
of
coffee.
Tea
-
drinking
has
become
a
national
habit
only