According to legend, over 5,000 years ago in China, there was a divine farmer named Shen Nong. One of the noble figures of Chinese mythology, he taught people agricultural and medicinal practice. One day, he sat beneath a tree and was ready to taste herbs, his servant began to boil drinking water. By chance, some dry leaves dropped from a tree into the water. It tasted a little bitter, and the water looked slightly yellowish, but it refreshed him. The tree turned out to be a wild tea tree.

Buddhist legends have another story. Once Bodhidharma stayed in a cave-temple outside Nanjing, where he practiced meditation. One day as he meditated, he felt sleepy. He cut off his eyelids in an attempt to keep himself awake; and to his surprise, tea plants sprang up from the ground where he had tossed the severed eyelids. Later, he used these leaves to brew tea to help him stay awake for meditation.

This article by Yang Tianqing and Daniel Kister.