Tea - a perennial plant, lives and fruits a hundred years or more. Tea bush unpretentious, can grow on poor, even stony soils. Tea belongs to the family of tea, bringing together 23 genera and more than 280 species distributed in subtropical and tropical regions of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. If wild tea - tree, tea culture from the constant cutting of young shoots and leaves to form - shrub.
The most common are four types of tea plants, which differ in shape and size, as well as chemical composition. Chinese tea - shrub to 3 m, the Japanese - more than a short, Ceylon - arborescent shrub 3-4 m tall with a short trunk and spreading crown, Indian - a small tree.
There have tea another definition - Lapsany. Bai-hoa "translated from Chinese means" white eyelash. Indeed, one side of the tea leaf is covered with thin silver hairs, similar to the white cilia. (Remember the legend of the monk Darrama?). Currently, the tea industry Lapsany called loose tea (unlike tea pressed).
The history of tea culture long enough.
Nearly 5000 years of famous Chinese tea.
But in ancient Chinese manuscripts dating back to 2700 BC. e., tea was mentioned as a medicinal plant. Just classifies tea and an old Chinese encyclopedia "Bentsar» (IV century BC. E.).
The notes of an Arab traveler (879) reports that China has collected taxes from the salts and more from the plant, a leaf which the Chinese are boiled in water, it's just bush, where the leaves are larger than the pomegranate tree, and the smell of their much pleasant, but they have something bitter. Boiling water, poured it on the leaves, and this drink cures for many diseases
