China’s Tea Culture
Initially, the tea plant has spread to neighboring countries in Asia with China. But this process was very slow and uneven. If China's tea culture was introduced in about 350 years, the next country, Japan, he entered (as plant) but, after almost half a millennium – in 805 or 810, and at about the same time, in 828, the year in Korea. Then came a long pause in a thousand years. But the breakthrough was more rapid: he was captured at the same time a significant amount to only Asian but also European countries. In 1824 – 1826's began experiments on breeding of tea in Java and Sumatra – in the then Dutch East Indies, in 1824 – 1825 – Vietnam (Annam) in 1833 – in Russia (Georgia) in 1834 – in India, in 1842 – in Ceylon and in 1846 – even in Hungary.
Except for Hungary, where it never came out of the small stage of experiments, other countries, including Russia, have moved to commercial production of tea for 70 – 80s of XIX century. By this time tea has won two continents: Africa (Republic of South Africa. Southern Rhodesia, East Africa) and South America (Brazil). And when these areas were in the early 20s of the XX century has given industrial tea, tea plant more advanced in some countries: in 1900 in Iran, in 1920 in Bulgaria (first experiments), in 1920 – 1930 in Rwanda, Burundi, Congo. After World War II continued spread of the tea plant, not only in southern areas, but also in northern limit for tea subtropics, including in Northern Italy, in Soviet Transcarpathia.
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