What is The Indian Legend Regarding The Discovery of Tea?

Updated on

Jun 25, 2023

What is The Indian Legend Regarding The Discovery of Tea?

As per the Indian Legend, the origin of the tea tracks back to an ancient Buddhist ascetic named Buddhidharma. Per the Legend, he cut off his eyelids sleepy during the meditation. The eyelids that fell on the ground grew up to 10 tea plants, and the leaves of these plants, when boiled or put into hot water, made a hot beverage that would banish sleep. Read also: Draw a Scene Depicting a Festival Around Your Favourite Subject Read Know More: Bodhidharma is known to be the saint and founder of Zen Buddhism. Bodhidharma then cut these leaves later to clear his mind, and after he resumed focusing on his meditation, he was able to meditate without feeling drowsy. Bodhidharma Den continued to take tea in his daily routine to meditate without losing focus. Historical Origin: However, let's look into the history of India. We will learn that Tea was introduced in India during the British reign in the 19th Century, which was a ste against getting rid of the Monopoly of Chinese Tea production. The British decided to cultivate tea production in Darjeeling, and how they started it by planting trees in the mountaineering region of Darjeeling in the early 1850s. Later on, the development of tea cultivation came into the region of Assam, and here, some wild species of Tea were cultivated under the plains of Assam. The species that were planted in Assam was closely related to the species that were planted in China. Compared to Chinese Tea, these tea plants cultivated in Assam had bigger leaves. During the late 19th Century, tea plantations were set in the mountainous region of the famous Nilgiri massive and the southern part of India.