[late]

I was reading a BBC article that said the tea that first came to England was green tea. But one of the oldest estates, that has records of tea purchases from that era, thinks it was lapsang souchong. Lapsang Souchong is a dark and smoky tea that is as far from green as it gets.

Most tea in China is green tea, it is to this day. And back then, roasting tea was relatively new. It had only been around for a couple centuries, things often changed slowly back then.

So maybe the very first tea to come to Europe was green, but the voyage was long, and damp, and they soon shifted over to black tea, which is roasted and is a lot slower to go bad.

No, it's not important. But the adoption, by the West, of Asian ways changed the world. It started wars, threw some countries into chaos, and was a big part of the slow emergence of the world we live in.

[ness31]

I knew most of that and was very much looking forward to part 2, but it never eventuated

I actually set myself up in the kitchen had a cup of tea with them