Chinese cultivated tea 6,000 years ago

2/6. The root of the issue: Archaeologists found roots belonging to a 6,000 year-old tea tree in China

The findings were made by a Chinese research team, who investigated the Tianluo Mountain, in the city of Yuyao in east China, to find China's earliest remains of human tea brewing.

After nearly 10 years of analysis, archaeologists found that people had been brewing tea for around 6,000 years, reported People's Daily Online.

The findings from the decade-long excavation were announced at the Archaeological Institute of Zhejing Province, on the 18th June.

Research began in 2004 when the team went to the mountain and found defined grooves in the earth near a tree's roots, as well as some broken pottery.

Both Japan's Northeast University and the Tea Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences later confirmed that the roots contained theanine - an amino acid characteristic of tea plants. [...] dailymail.co.uk