cup of it. Legend says silk was discovered when a cocoon fell from a
mulberry bush into a cup of imperial tea. This is similar to the legend of the
discovery of tea where an emperor (Shen Nung (2737 B.C.)) drank a cup of water
into which leaves from an overhanging Camellia bush had fallen.
Tea, no matter what country it comes from, is from the Camellia sinensis
plant. It seems to have been a new beverage in the third century A.D., a time
when it was still regarded with suspicion, much as the tomato was when it was
first brought to Europe.
Today we refer to beverages as tea even though there is no real tea in them.
(Purists call them tisanes.) In the early period, there was confusion, too, and
the Chinese for tea was sometimes used to refer to other plants, according to
Bodde.