History
The custom of using tea leaves in order to give flavour to boiling water was initiated in China around 2500 BC.
The first contact that Europeans had with tea, took place in India, where its use was very extensive, with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1497. The first tea shipment arrived in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) by 1610, thanks to the Oriental Indian Company.
After that, the drink appears in France supposedly between 1635 and 1636.Around 1657 black tea arrives to England via Holland and through coffee traders from London. Only between 1720 and 1730, did its consumption become widespread around the whole Europe.
In England tea became very rapidly entrenched and popularized within all the social classes of the society; a fact that made it the country with the highest number of consumers in the world.
