33 Interesting Facts About Tea

Tea is a pretty cool thing. It tastes great, looks beautiful and will do you the world of good. So we wanted to celebrate our love for tea with some cool tea facts. Thirty-three to be precise.

1. 165 million cups of tea are drunk in the UK every day compared to only 70 million cups of coffee.

2. China is the largest tea producer in the world.

3. The UK is surprisingly not the biggest tea-drinking nation! Can you guess which country drinks the most tea per capita? (It's Turkey!)

4. Over 96% of tea in the UK is consumed from a teabag. But that's set to tip in favour of loose tea once the nation discovers what they're missing out on.

5. Green, black, white and oolong tea are all made from the same plant - the Camellia sinensis.

6. Did you know that decaf tea is made by soaking the tea leaves in an organic solvent? Perhaps not the healthy alternative you thought.

7. There are over 1500 different varieties of tea and millions of different blends.

8. Drinking tea on a hot day can help cool you down. As your temperature rises your body begins to perspire which has a cooling effect. Grandad was right all this time!

9. 98% of tea drunk in the UK is with milk. With 25% of milk consumption coming from drinking tea.

10. On average BRUU employees drink 25 cups of tea each week. On the days when Greg is brewing it will mostly be Mate tea.

11. Over 28 super healthy ingredients go into making each Teatox.

12. Tasseography is the art of reading tea leaves.

13. Who invented tea? According to legend, in 2737 BC, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water when some leaves from the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea.

14. You can brew the leaves from a raspberry plant to make a fruity infusion.

15. Traditionally milk was poured into the cup to protect the fine China. It caught on and is now a tea tradition.

16. Tea was traditionally used for medicinal purposes. It took over 3000 years before it was drunk as a beverage.

17. When you pour hot water over tea leaves and they uncurl it is traditionally called "the agony of the leaves". Sorry tea, we love you really.

18. Earl Grey tea was named after a former British Prime Minister.

19. Loose tea can be kept for up to 2 years.

20. English tea is traditionally served between 3-6pm GMT.

    

21. In Tibet they drink butter tea made using tea, salt and butter. Don't knock it until you try it.

22. Many BRUU loose teas can be re-infused many times.

23. "A hasty person drinks tea with a fork" Chinese Proverb

24. According to the US Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Tea For Two was the second most performed song of the 20th century. Although we all have our favourites - I'm a little teapot. Just saying.

25. In the UK in 1999 official figures stated that 37 people were injured by tea cosies. Your guess is as good as ours.

26. It takes 12 years before a tea plant produces a seed and another 3 years before it can be harvested. Savour each sip.

27. Black tea is known as red tea in China.

28. Most black teas are made using tea from Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka but the name stuck.

29. 50% of all tea comes from East Africa.

30. 70% of the UK population drank tea yesterday

31. Half of tea drinkers take sugar with their tea. 

32. A cup of tea contains half the caffeine of coffee.

33. Making tea is much better for the environment than coffee. To make a litre of coffee over 1120 litres of water are used compared to only 120 litres for tea.

*This blog was updated February 2022.