Talk:Tea

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To-do list for Tea: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Expand economics section and add citations
  • Is there tea grown in the Caribbean, more precisely Puerto Rico?
  • Consider adding to LINKS - On-line tea yellow pages provided by consumer tea magazine. http://www.teaexperience.com/Resource_Listing_Index.htm
  • Expand the section on plantation. How long does the shrub grow, how long it is useful.
  • Explain a difference between chinese and assamica type and hybrids.
  • Add section about plucking. How (hand vs. machine), plucking formulas. How often (flushes).
  • Write short overview of the Tea history in Asia, add it to the top of the section.
  • Merge historical information from Tea culture (China, Japan) to Tea history (China, Japan)
  • Explain the way tea spread around the world (Mongolia, Middle east, caravans atc.).
  • Add sections about former USSR countries. E.g. the picture now illustrating planting of tea in Russia should go Georgia.
  • Expound on origins and types of North African tea rituals (Morocco, etc).
  • Add section/relevant info on hand tied teas sometimes know as "preformance teas", "artisan teas", "Bouquet teas" or "Display teas", [1] that open up when steeped in hot water. They are capable of releasing hidden flowers or herbs, and can mimick animal or plant shapes etc. etc.
  • Consider drinking in antique - On-line tea tea wholesaler that sells [pu erh tea]http://www.chayelin.com where the Health benefits are aplentiful..
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Contents

[edit] Statistics section

I don't understand the table at all. There are two conflicting sets of figures, and there is no header to explain what the two sets of figures represent.

Also, the table conflicts with the map. The map indicates no significant amount of tea is produced in Indonesia, but the table indicates Indonesia is one of the world's major tea producers.

Someone who knows things should fix this.

Ordinary Person (talk) 09:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Calmness?

Is there any truth to the claim that tea makes you calmer? Does your pulse go down after drinking a cup of tea? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.202.21 (talk) 07:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Calmness through Theanine perhaps? Sjschen (talk) 15:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
The calming effect might be a reference to Chamomile herbal tea which is cited for calming and digestive issues as it is a mild sedative. It has the following chemcals: bisabolol (essential oil), lactones, coumarins, glycosides. Please note that chamomile tea is not infact made from tea (as in the plant Camellia sinensis) but rather it is an herbal infusion (tisane). Zidel333 (talk) 19:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


Tea usually has caffeine, which is a stiumulant, so it is far from calming. Jehan6018, Jan 30, 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.144.145.25 (talk) 22:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Caffeine is indead an active ingredient which like any active have different impact on the body dependind on the amount you drink. Do simple a experiment: drink a coffee one evening and the next day drink a tea. You will see the result will be different. Sensonet (talk) 10:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] See also clean-up

How about removing the tea companies from this section? Otherwise it will get to big. There can instead be a link to a list of them based on the [Category:Tea brands] page. What do people think? Malick78 (talk) 13:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tea in Australia

Australia is not shown as a tea producing nation in this article's graphic.

However, Nerada Tea have quite a large plantation near Cairns in Queensland.

http://www.neradatea.com.au

There are also several other growers, such as Madura Tea, Daintree Tea and Northern Rivers Tea.

Australia is also shown as a "tea producing nation" in the article that is cited under the graphic.

121.44.93.124 (talk) 11:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First line rewrite

Tea is a beverage made by steeping processed leaves, buds, or twigs of the tea bush, Camellia sinensis, in hot water for a few minutes.

change to -->

Tea is an infusion made by steeping processed leaves, buds, or twigs of the tea bush into hot water. The steeping usually thanks no longer than a few minutes.

-> "usually thanks" ????

This rewrite should be done to show the similarities between herbal tea, mate, tea, ...

Please look into and change this line. Thanks.

KVDP (talk) 13:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction regarding Catherine of Braganza

This article says that Catherine of Braganza brought tea to the English court when she married Charles II in 1660, and that Samuel Pepys mentioned tea "the same year." But according to the article Catherine of Braganza, she didn't marry him or arrive in England until 1662. - Montréalais (talk) 17:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

That is a big contradiction. Some what should fixed that pronto. Chop chop! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.223.204 (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where is just plain tea?

Well? 63.227.5.54 (talk) 07:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "plain tea"? Sjschen (talk) 14:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
If by plain you mean traditional Western tea (e.g. a non-flavored blend of Black tea that is withered, oxidized and/or placed in a teabag), then yeah. Check out the Black Tea article. Its quite helpful. Zidel333 (talk) 15:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tetsubin article help

OK, I've been reading up on Tetsubins (Japanese iron teapots) for a while now, and I'm getting contradictory information on them. Essentially, they are kettles in Asia, that is to say all they do is brew the hot water for infusion. In the West however people believe that iron teapots are just that, tea pots to brew the tea in. Not kettles. This may partially be explained as the kettles are very small, and look like a tea pot for 2. The main issue is that iron, unlike other metals, reacts to the tea forming tannins and thus damaging the flavor of the tea. So, if this is all true, and we are to agree with the original and correct usage of the tetsubin is a kettle, then the entire article needs to be rewritten.

Any thoughts? Am I wrong here? I'm looking up sources right now. Zidel333 (talk) 20:04, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A Small Correction

In Spanish, monosyllabic words are never diacritically accented. So the word for tea is te, not té.

  • I'm a Spanish native speaker and I can assure that the word té must be written with accent. It's true that monosyllabic words are not usually accented in my language, but they are when a monosyllabic word has more than one meaning, like in this case. Te (without accent) means something like "to you". As the word has two meanings, when refering to one of them --the drink-- it must be written with accent. Pabletex (talk) 18:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another Linguistic Point

Chaa probably came from Cantonese, actually, since British sailors would have spent so much time there, instead of in North China. JKn from


[edit] Tea in the United Kingdom

Which county in the United Kingdom would you say that is the most famous between them all for its high-quality and well-known tea? If you know any British city that has become famous for its tea, it would also be helpful to me. Pabletex (talk) 18:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Yorkshire —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.88.34.176 (talk) 00:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] White Tea

There's a discussion in the German Wikipedia about the correct word for Tea with milk in Great Britain. Does the expression "white tea" exist? And if so, is it just used in families or is it an official term? Dinah --217.87.215.29 (talk) 21:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

"White Tea" refers to an actual type of tea leaf, just like "green tea" or "black tea", and it is regarded as pretty official, IMO. Tea with milk or tea with cream is sometimes referred as "milk tea" or "tea with milk", though the milk or creamers added to the tea is sometimes called "whitening". Sjschen (talk) 22:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

In the UK and Ireland it's standard to add milk to tea, so in practice most people would call it "tea". If you wanted black tea you'd have to specify that.AleXd (talk) 22:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tea temperatures

correct tea temperatures are:

  • 100°Celsius for fermented tea (black)
  • 90°-100° Celsius for semi-feremented tea (oolong, ...)
  • 70-80° Celsius for unfermented tea (green, ...)

reference: [1]

Alter the article with this information. Thanks. 87.64.201.184 (talk) 08:25, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed statement/s

Discuss these statements here before removing them.

I undid the removal of the statements within India section as I found it to be plausible. A source would be helpful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Media Research (talk • contribs) 03:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

In the mid-nineteenth century the "discovery" of tea growing wild in Assam proved to be consequential, since India's British rulers desired to break China's monopoly of world tea exports. There is little evidence, however, that tea played any role in Indian agriculture and the Indian diet prior to that time

— Gardella, Robert (1994). Harvesting Mountains. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520084144. 
The word "tea" occurs in Shakespeare, and "cha," the Canton-Macao form, crops up in Lisbon from about 1550. "Cha" was used in English seaports until quite recent times, and was corrupted inland to "char" (no link with "charlady"). The upper classes pronounced it "tay" and spelt it "thé" as in French, and this was the common pronunciation of the genteel classes until Victorian times. The word was also spelt "te," "thia," and "kia," in imitation of various Mandarin alternatives in China itself. Significantly, the word was unknown in India until it was introduced by the English.

....
Tea was unknown in India, except as an imported consumable from China, enjoyed only by some Europeans and a few Europeanized Indians.

— Hobhouse, Henry (2005). Seeds of Change: Six Plants that Transformed Mankind. Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 1593760493. 

I'm still not convinced that tea didn't exist in India before the British introduced it to them. Lack of known/existing evidence doesn't neccesarily confirm non-existence in India before the British rule. Direct quotes from books doesn't seem reliable enough - I would like to see more historical evidence. I'm very sure that I've heard or read somewhere that there was a different method of drinking tea in India before British introduced the Chinese method. The origins of tea-drinking may perhaps lie in China, but it could have spread towards India (at least North-East India) before the British took control. I'll do more research and give feedback. Media Research (talk) 03:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Lack of known/existing evidence doesn't neccesarily confirm non-existence in India before the British rule.

You're right, it doesn't.

Just remember: the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; also, "verifiable" in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source.

JFD (talk) 05:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll remove the two sources as would be safe to say that the Encyclopedia Britannica quote, which says the same thing as the above mentioned quotes, covers both points adequately. It also uses somewhat lesser harsh language and doesn't stand out. Vtria 08 (talk) 23:49, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[sock]

Finally, there is also the quote from The Cambridge World History of Food which begins with the same statement. Vtria 08 (talk) 23:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[sock]

I'm going to restore (and somewhat re-word) the material as there was some unpleasantness over this issue with a sockpuppet some time back. JFD (talk) 23:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't let interactions with past sock puppets dictate future (or present) actions. Should I restore the text 'According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica (2008):' so that the text is attributed to Encyclopedia Brittanica? Vtria 08 (talk) 06:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[sock]

There was unpleasantness because the sockpuppeteer was trying to use sources to imply conclusions that they didn't explicitly support.
Let me re-word it again to try and make it less "harsh" (as you put it), but still clear.
And the text is already attributed to the Encyclopedia Britannica by footnote. JFD (talk) 11:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The difference between 'Indians were introduced to the custom of drinking tea, and its cultivation as an agricultural crop, in the 19th century by the British.' and 'Many scholars are of the view that prior to the 19th century, tea was unknown to the Indian diet and to Indian agriculture.' is very less. It still stands out like the article means to target a nationality whatever the intention may be.

I'll incorporate text about China in the article and remove repeated mentions of a single statement. The Britannica and Cambridge quotes do the job without standing out.

Vtria 08 (talk) 13:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[sock]

The salient point, which you keep omitting, is that tea-drinking and the cultivation of tea as an agricultural crop were not practiced in India until the 19th century. And surely this section ought to address the issue of when these practices were introduced to India. JFD (talk) 13:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Your concern regarding agriculture has already been addressed. The Cambridge World History of Food quote states that: 'The tea cultivation begun there in the nineteenth century by the British'.

Furthermore, the Encyclopedia Britannica states: 'In 1824 tea plants were discovered in the hills along the frontier between Burma and the Indian state of Assam. The British introduced tea culture into India'.

I introduced the Cambridge quote on cultivation by the way. I also introduced the Encyclopedia Britannica quote on discovery and introduction.

Vtria 08 (talk) 14:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[sock]

My concern regarding the custom of drinking tea remains unaddressed or, rather, was omitted by you. JFD (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The mention of cultivation, discovery and introduction is more than enough. But at this point I'm in no mood to reply to any more intimidating posts by you. Good Day, JFD. Vtria 08 (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[sock]

Your concern regarding 'custom of drinking tea' in India is addressed by the Cambridge quote: "Although a Dutch seafarer wrote of tea being eaten as well as drunk in India in 1598, accounts of earlier Indian history do not mention the use of tea or its cultivation."
I hope you will not add repeated mentions in an overly strong manner again.
Vtria 08 (talk) 19:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[sock]

Vtria 08,

If you want to "omit repeated mentions", take a look at your own contributions.

Most of the text you've added to the history section is about Indian tea production in the present day; what's more, it's been superseded by more recent research already cited in the production section.

JFD (talk) 18:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

If its 2000 then its history. I'll mention that more clearly in the introduction to the Cambridge quote. Vtria 08 (talk) 15:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[sock]

Out of curiosity, Vtria, if you consider the year 2000 "history," why do you delete citations from 2005? JFD (talk) 15:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I presume your comments are directed towards this citation:

Many scholars are of the view that prior to the 19th century, tea was unknown to the Indian diet and to Indian agriculture.<ref>Hobhouse 2005:119</ref>

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica quote:

"In 1824 tea plants were discovered in the hills along the frontier between Burma and the Indian state of Assam. The British introduced tea culture into India in 1836 and into Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1867. At first they used seeds from China, but later seeds from the Assam plant were used."<ref>tea. (2008). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2008 Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.</ref>

In addition, the Cambridge quote covered additional details about history of the cultivation of tea in India from the times of the British till 2000.
Vtria 08 (talk) 16:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[sock]

Vtria 08,

Of concern is your heavy reliance on tertiary sources (e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Cambridge World History of Food), that is, sources which themselves are summaries of primary and secondary sources.

Wikipedia is itself a tertiary source and, for that reason, tries not to rely too heavily on encyclopedias and other tertiary sources: because doing so makes Wikipedia nothing more than a copy of other encyclopedias and tertiary sources.

Since your deletions, Vtria 08, not only does the history of tea in India section cite only tertiary sources but, of its 247 words, fully 220—almost 90%!—have been cut-and-pasted from those tertiary sources.

Can you see why this is a problem?

JFD (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

There’s no real problem, JFD. Both Cambridge and Encyclopedia Britannica are reliable sources. But I'm beginning to see that you have been changing arguments to have the text deleted on some pretext or the other.
Out of sheer curiosity, I spent the last hour looking up your contributions to find that you like to put China above India when it comes to articles like salt (where you deleted India), University (where you played up China as the cradle of Universities without citing a source), and Indian martial arts (where you cite from http://pic1.piczo.com/).[sock]

In each of those cases, I was fixing the damage done by a notorious sockpuppeteer[2][3][4] whom the Arbitration Committee forbade from editing Wikipedia under any username other than his original. JFD (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Good Day,
Vtria 08 (talk) 20:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[sock]
You also put these lines in the article: "The assamica variety of camellia sinensis growing wild in Assam gave the British a way to break the monopoly that the Chinese had hitherto held on tea."
JFD, There are better ways of promoting China then to attack India or the west.[sock]

Vtria 08, originally I made no mention of China or the west. JFD (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Vtria 08 (talk) 20:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Now you have attacked India by deleting a source from 2003 and copying/pasting from "Yamamoto p. 2", the reference for which you do not provide.[sock]

I was doing nothing more than fixing damage by that same sockpuppeteer. JFD (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that we have a Cambridge quote which claims that "Although a Dutch seafarer wrote of tea being eaten as well as drunk in India in 1598, accounts of earlier Indian history do not mention the use of tea or its cultivation."
Why attack other countries repeatedly? This has to stop sometime. You tend to do this habitually and you're subjecting article after article to your POV. Being pro-China I can understand but being anti-west and anti-India, and editing on that pattern here is something that has to be taken seriously, and stopped.
Vtria 08 (talk) 20:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[sock]

Look, Vtria 08, you clearly understand the value of leaving out irrelevant details, otherwise you would have left in the sentence immediately after "Although a Dutch seafarer wrote of tea being eaten as well as drunk in India in 1598, accounts of earlier Indian history do not mention the use of tea or its cultivation."

You know, the one about the popularity of buttermilk?

I have deleting nothing you added. Even where it was a repeated mention—the pretext you have used to delete text—I have moved it to a more appropriate place in the article rather than deleted it, even though it was redundant.

That is because I have heretofore assumed good faith on your part.

Best, JFD (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

JFD,
You're very good with your replies.
Its good that you're pro-China. Heaven knows that the Chinese people have worked hard for this moment and their achievements are celebrated by humanity in general, including the westerners and Indians (from what I gathered from Joseph Needham's reviews) who enjoy what China helped develop. Your stand that China's achievements should never be taken away or hurt is both understandable and admirable.
But my problems begin when you edit on the sections dealing with other countries, where you deliberately hurt their achievements to a significant extent. What bothers me in particular is that there is a large number of 'West' and 'India' sections throughout your contributions list that could do with some editing.
I'll be editing some of those in the near future.
I'd like to end with that famous Needham Quote: ‘Certain it is that no people or group of peoples has had a monopoly in contributing to the development of Science. Their achievements should be mutually recognised and freely celebrated with the joined hands of universal brotherhood.'
Peace,
Vtria 08 (talk) 16:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes

Something is wrong with the the footnotes, and has been so prior to my editing. More experienced users should take a look at the footnotes and solve the problem. Vtria 08 (talk) 19:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the footnotes. Vtria 08 (talk) 17:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chen 1999

I copied/pasted the quote in the "Potential effects of tea on health" section and later removed the footnote '(Chen 1999)' from the quote.

The exact quote from "Mondal, T.K. (2007), "Tea", in Pua, E.C. & Davey, M.R., Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, vol. 60: Transgenic Crops V, Berlin: Springer, pp. 519–535, ISBN 3540491600" is given below:

The economic importance of the genus Camellia is attributed primarily to tea. Several books have been published describing the beneficial properties to health of tea (Kuroda and Hara 2004). Tea leaves contain more than 700 chemicals, among which the compounds closely related to human health are flavanoides, amino acids, vitamins (C, E and K), caffeine and polysaccharides. Moreover, ‘teadrinking’hasrecentlyproventobeassociatedwithcell-mediated immune function of the human body. Tea plays an important role in improving beneficial intestinal microflora, as well as providing immunity against intestinal disorders and in protecting cell membranes from oxidative damage. Tea also prevents dental caries due to the presence of fluorine. The role of tea is well establishedinnormalizing bloodpressure, lipid depressing activity, prevention of coronary heart diseases and diabetes by reducing the blood-glucose activity (Chen 1999). Tea also possesses germicidal and germistatic activities against various gram positive and gram negative human pathogenic bacteria (Chen 1999). Both green and black tea infusions contain a number of antioxidants, mainly catechins that have anti-carcinogenic, anti-mutagenic and anti-tumor properties.

Is it absolutely essential that we retain "(Kuroda and Hara 2004)" and "(Chen 1999)"? Only "(Chen 1999)" is in the article right now.

Sincere Regards, Vtria 08 (talk) 17:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of the in-line citations. Vtria 08 (talk) 23:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[sock]

[edit] Char

The word "char" or "cha" is also the word for tea in many Indian languages, is there a correlation between the origins of the word, or did it migrate to one country to another, namely China or India?Storms991 (talk) 02:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cha Jing

Wait, so a book on tea was called Cha Jing? Please tell me that's not pronounced "cha-ching". - Denimadept (talk) 23:03, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not. It's 茶经, or chá jīng. If you were going with Wade-Giles, however, it would be "ching," as in I Ching. bibliomaniac15 Hey you! Stop lazing around and help fix this article instead! 23:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Whew. That would've been too apropos for comfort. Thanks. - Denimadept (talk) 23:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unreliable Sources

Why did user 71.172.46.153 add an unreliable sources tag to the history section? Which sources are unreliable? Please let us know so the "unreliable" sources can be pinpointed and supplemented/removed. Don't just throw a tag onto there without saying why, because that doesn't lend itself to any improvement of this article. Thank you! Vamooom (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

An unreliable sources tag was added to this section because the sources you cite, being personal or commercial websites, are unreliable sources. 12.15.120.169 (talk) 16:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Tea cultivation in India has somewhat ambiguous origins. Though the extent of the popularity of tea in Ancient India is unknown, it is known that the tea plant was a wild plant in India that was indeed brewed by local inhabitants of different regions.[2]

The source of this is http://www.coffee-tea-etc.com/, a commercial website.

Indian legends credit the creation of tea as known in the modern sense to Bodhidharma (ca. 460-534), a monk born near Madras, India, and the founder of the Ch'an (or Zen) sect of Buddhism.[3][4]

The sources of this are the commercial websites http://www.twiningsusa.com/ and http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/, "The World's Most Popular Website Devoted to Men's Clothing Advice!"

Interestingly, ancient Japanese tales credit the origin of tea to Bodhidharma as well.[5][6]

The sources of this are http://www.twiningsusa.com/ and http://www.lcy.net/, a commercial and personal website, respectively.

The Singpho tribe and the Khamti tribe also validate that they have been consuming tea since the 12th century.[7][8]

This source does not mention the Khamti or give the 12th century date.

The first recorded reference to tea in India was in the ancient epic of the Ramayana, when Hanuman was sent to the Himalayas to bring the Sanjeevani tea plant for medicinal use.[9][10][11]

The sources of this are http://www.finjaan.com/indian-tea.html, http://www.gmvnl.com/newgmvn/districts/chamoli/valley_of_flowers.aspx, and the Ralph T. H. Griffith translation of the Ramayana.

http://www.finjaan.com/indian-tea.html is a commercial website.

There is no mention of tea at http://www.gmvnl.com/newgmvn/districts/chamoli/valley_of_flowers.aspx.

The Ralph T. H. Griffith translation of the Ramayana can be found online, but there is no mention of tea in the sourced Book VI, Canto CII, which can be found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry476.htm.

The next recorded reference to tea in India dates to 1598, when a Dutch traveler, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, noted in a book that "the Indians ate the leaves as a vegetable with garlic and oil and boiled the leaves to make a brew."[12][13]

The same year, another reference to tea in India was recorded, by a different group of Dutch explorers.[14]

Are you sure that there were two different references to tea in India by Dutch explorers, or do all of these refer to a single Dutch account.

Also, Kiple and Ornelas say "Although a Dutch seafarer wrote of tea being eaten as well as drunk in India in 1598, accounts of earlier Indian history do not mention the use of tea or its cultivation."

In an 1877 pamphlet written by Samuel Baildon, and published by W.Newman and Co. of Calcutta, he writes, "...various merchants in Calcutta were discussing the chance of imported China seeds thriving in Assam, when a native from the province present, seeing some tea said, "We have the plant growing wild in our jungles." It is then documented that the Assamese nobleman, Maniram Dutta Barua, (also known as Maniram Dewan) showed British surveyors existing fields used for tea cultivation and wild tea plants growing in the Assamese jungle.[15]

The source of this is http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/, a personal webpage. 12.15.120.169 (talk) 15:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Please don't remove content without even providing reasonable time for others to have their say. You can tag it, but not simply remove it.
Playing by your actions, can I also remove the first 7 paragraphs from the 'China' section since there are no sources? And completely remove the whole Korea section since there's not a single source?
Please be reasonable by providing ample time for the gathering of reliable sources.
If after some months, ther's still no changes, we'll refer it to the Reliable sources/Noticeboard to decide on an action.
Thanks. --60.50.64.43 (talk) 11:11, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I referred it to the Reliable sources/Noticeboard and this is the response:

Most of this is unreliable, and the identification of the sanjeevani with tea is pure madness. These general points are well known: that tea is indigenous to Assam has been known since the early 1800s - when it caused quite a sensation - and that Maniram Dewan, a major figure in 19th c Assamese history, was, together with Dwarkanath Tagore, one of the founding directors of the original subsidiary of the EICo developed for exploitation of that resource, the Assam Company. The use of tea by the Assamese prior to the commercial development of the gardens is also induced from various texts, but IIRC not directly known.

12.15.120.169 (talk) 19:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pyramid

were the pyramid tea bags not invented by pg tips? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.207.2.228 (talk) 12:40, 24 May 2008 (UTC)