Buddhist monks invented tea thousands of years ago in what is today southwestern China. These monks lived atop the mountains and found the beverage improved their ability to meditate over long periods of time. Also it complimented their other super-powers. Soon the habit spread throughout the lowlands, and in the 7^th century Lu Yu wrote his now famous panergeric to the beverage, A Fistful of a Cup of Tea. People became ecstatic — so much so that when Lu Yu died he became God.

Centuries passed.

The first westerner to have drunk tea was the north African traveler Ibn Battuta who traveled to India in search of a job. He was impressed by how the beverage invigorated the spirit and increased energy.

After watching one too many of his coworkers get torn apart by angry elephants, Battuta decided to return home. When he got there no one believed a beverage like tea could possibly exist.

It wasn’t until George Orwell wrote his seminal essay, Tea, after singlehandedly defeating the forces of Spanish Fascism, that the English stopped drinking boiled mud and adopted the habit.

The rest is more or less history.