| That is not correct; I believe the "god-like dynasty founder" you're referring to is Shennong, the mythical 2nd emperor of Chine who is said to have invented tea, medicine and government[0]. If so, there is (obviously) no historical evidence of his existence. On the other hand, the history of tea is well understood. Tea originated in Yunnan province and was used by the local minority groups along the Lancang river (the headwaters of the Mekong) as a masicient, chewed like coca leaf in the Andes and Holly in North America, for its stimulating properties. Before the Tang Dynasty, tea was a medicinal herb, part of the broader group of herbs used as a medicine by the wondering mendicants of Southern China, who spread its use throughout the southern provenances. Tea became a regional drink pre-Tang, but didn't begin to spread throughout China until the introduction of Buddhism and its adoption into the Buddhist practice as part of the Chinese temperance movement (used in place of alcohol). Most of the myths around tea originated with Lu Yu[1] a real historical figure who wrote "Cha Jing" or Tea Bible during the Tang - working outside the widely accepted historical texts, he attributed any nebulous mention of medicinal herb (then called "Tu" in classical Chinese) to the tea plant and built up a corpus of mythologies and stories around the new plant (as a type of promotion), including the addition of tea to the older existing myth of Shennong. Anyway - that is all to say: the history of tea is also the story of the spread of Chan Buddhism and its (inconsistent) anti-alcohol temperance moment from a niche herb in Southern China to one of the largest agricultural commodities today. I'd recommend "Tea In China: A Religous And Cultural History by James A. Benn"[2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shennong [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Yu [2] https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/tea-in-china-a-religious-an... |