The Origins of Tea
1. What is tea plant?The tea plant,an important cash crop in China , is an evergreen woody plant. Tea leaves are serrated and each consists of 7-10 pairs of main veins. The lateral veins stretch to two-thirds toward the leaf margin at angles of ≥ 45°, then curve up connecting the upper lateral veins, forming a net. This is a distinguishable characteristic of tea leaves. The color of the flowers is generally white and the seeds have hard shells. In plant taxonomy, tea plant belongs to section Thea,genus Camellia,family Theaceae, order Theales, class Magnoliopsida, division Magnoliophyta. In 1753, a Swedish botanist Carl von...