This is the country where tea has been drunk for at least four thousand years and the Chinese are rightfully proud of many different traditions of tea drinking. Tea is always offered to a guest, it is always served at official receptions and business meetings.

However it would be wrong to think that tea has always been drunk in its present form; for several thousand years the Chinese experimented with different methods of processing and brewing tea leaves. First, tea leaves were simply boiled.

In the historic treatise "History of Qin Dynasty" the following is written about tea: "people of Wu kingdom boil tea leaves and call the mass "flavoured squash". Then a more complex processing method was invented: tea leaves were roasted till they got brown colour and then they were ground into flower. The tea prepared in this way was not boiled but brewed with boiling water - in the same way as we do it today. A bit later there appeared brick tea that was obtained through preparing tea paste and drying it.

However, the most exquisite form tea ceremony took when it became customary to arrange so called "tea comparisons". This was a kind of competition consisting of the following steps: tea leaves were ground to dust and then poured over with boiling water, afterwards the contestants had to froth their tea till white foam appeared on the surface. The one whose foam stayed longest won the contest.

However, one should not regard to tea comparisons as to ordinary contests - true intellectuals of the time could find pleasure in simply watching tea foam. In his poem "The First Spring Rain Near to Linnan" the poet Lu Yu wrote, "The brush glides on paper leaving hieroglyphs. I am sitting at the window entertaining myself with watching tea foam."

Only in the times of Ming Dynasty in the end of XIV century the upper circles of the Chinese society started to consume tea in its present form. It is interesting to note that ordinary people had preferred this kind of tea long before, as it was easier to prepare. It is a rather rare occasion when higher circles of the society adopt the customs of common people. In his treatise "Additional chapters about the wilderness and achievements" the philosopher Sheng Defu wrote, "The contemporaries like true flavour of tea buds, they returned to the beginnings, changed luxury for simplicity and returned to the flavour of tea that had been chosen by ancestors".

The golden age of Chinese tea houses - places in a way similar to the British coffee houses - falls on approximately the same period in time. In such tea houses people could have a cup of tea and relax talking to other guests.

The rich tea-drinking traditions are still preserved in modern China. Tea in this country is not merely a drink, it is a lifestyle. Every person is a tea expert here and they always appreciate an opportunity to cup one of the famous grades. It is not in vain that the following phrase about tea of the poet Su Shi became catchwords in China, "Wonderful tea is always desired as much as a beautiful woman".