Refine your search

The results of your search are listed below alongside the search terms you entered on the previous page. You can refine your search by amending any of the parameters in the form and resubmitting it.

Select all Deselect all Add selection to lightbox
Large Small
Thumbnails per page
According to oral tradition, tea has been grown in China for more than four millennia. The earliest written accounts of tea making, however, date from around 350 AD, when it first became a drink at the imperial court.<br/><br/> Around 800 AD tea seeds were taken to Japan, where regular cultivation was soon established. Just over five centuries later, in 1517, tea was first shipped to Europe by the Portuguese soon after they began their trade with China. In 1667 the Honourable East India Company ordered the first British shipment of tea from China, requesting of their agents ‘one hundred pounds weight of the best tey that you can get’.<br/><br/> In 1826 the Dutch bought seeds from Japan for cultivation in their growing East Indian Empire, supplementing this effort in 1833 by imports of seeds, workers and implements from China. Meanwhile, also in the 1830s, the East India Company began growing tea on an experimental basis in Assam – the first one hundred boxes of Assamese tea reached Britain in 1840, and found a ready market.<br/><br/> About the same time, tea seedlings were transplanted from Assam to Sri Lanka and planted in the highlands around Kandy. By the beginning of the present century tea was very much in fashion, with plantations established as far afield as Vietnam in Southeast Asia, Georgia in Europe, Natal, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique in Africa, Argentina, Brazil and Peru in South America, and Queensland in Australia. Despite this proliferation, however, Sri Lanka remains the largest producer of tea in the world today, with the fragrant black leaf the mainstay of its economy.
Oolong (simplified Chinese: 乌龙; traditional Chinese: 烏龍; pinyin: wūlóng) is a traditional Chinese tea (Camellia sinensis) produced through a unique process including withering under the strong sun and oxidation before curling and twisting.<br/><br/> Most oolong teas, especially those of fine quality, involve unique tea plant cultivars that are exclusively used for particular varieties. This tea category is especially popular with tea connoisseurs of south China and Chinese expatriates in Southeast Asia, as is the tea preparation process that originated from this area: gongfu tea-making, or the gongfu tea infusion approach.<br/><br/> Different varieties of oolong are processed differently, but the leaves are formed into one of two distinct styles. Some are rolled into long curly leaves, while others are 'wrap-curled' into small beads, each with a tail. The former style is the more traditional of the two.<br/><br/> The name oolong tea came into the English language from the Chinese name (Chinese: 烏龍茶), meaning 'black dragon tea.