10 countries where they drink the most tea

We present you a dozen countries in which tea is one of the most favorite drinks. Imagine, but there is neither India nor China among them…

It should be noted right away that the inhabitants of our planet as a whole are very fond of tea. Statistics say that in its popularity it is second only to water, which, for completely natural reasons, once and for all occupied the first place. The history of tea drinking is very ancient, if you believe the myths, it has more than four thousand years. And during this time, many varieties of tea bushes were bred and countless ways of processing leaves and brewing tea itself were invented. Black, green, red, white, baichy, pressed, extracted, granulated, siloed, in capsules, in bags — you can list indefinitely. And if you collect all the recipes for brewing tea in one book, you will get a weighty volume of many hundreds of pages. In a word, if you set out to try all the existing varieties and methods of tea brewing, then the average human life is clearly not enough. But there are also flavored, fruit, herbal, etc., etc.

The tea bush itself is a thermophilic plant, so it is grown only in those countries where there is a suitable climate. It is no longer possible to grow tea north of Georgia. And the most numerous and most profitable tea plantations are in China, India and Africa.

In the homeland of wild tea, Asian peoples learned to prepare a healing and invigorating drink in ancient times, but the tradition of drinking tea reached enlightened Europe only in the middle of the XVII century. That is, roughly speaking, first the Europeans learned to smoke, and only then they mastered tea drinking.

And yet, even with such a gigantic popularity of tea, there are countries where it is loved, and therefore consumed the most. Surprisingly, this list of record holders does not include both China and India — the main inventors and producers of the best and most diverse tea in the world. For India, this is largely due to the low standard of living of the majority of the population (India ranks second in number, and 136th in standard of living), and in Traditional brewing methods are used in China, which allow you to spend tea very economically. In addition, the Chinese are more fond of green teas, which not only can, but also need to be brewed repeatedly, so the average consumption figures of the tea leaf itself per capita are not so large.

10. Kazakhstan. Average consumption — 1.54 kg per capita

Today, 99% of the population of Kazakhstan drinks tea every day, and half of these people admit that they consume more than four cups of this drink a day. The main amount of tea in Kazakhstan comes from India, Sri Lanka and China, but the country has its own tea-making factories that produce very high-quality and very affordable products.

Tea drinking has become firmly established in the national Kazakh traditions, and it is considered impolite to refuse if you are offered a cup of tea. In Kazakhstan, there are many unique recipes for making tea, which may seem quite exotic to an unusual person (for example, with sour cream, with salt, with talkan), but in fact they are ideal for the rather harsh climate of this country.

9. Qatar. Average consumption — 1.60 kg per capita

8. Kuwait. Average consumption — 1.61 kg per capita

7. United Arab Emirates. Average consumption — 1.89 kg per capita

6. Seychelles. Average consumption — 2.08 kg per capita

5. Great Britain. Average consumption — 2.74 kg per capita

Tea is drunk here, of course, not only at 5 o'clock, but also throughout the day. The British are very well versed in numerous varieties of tea and in what additives they should be combined with. And the famous bergamot-flavored Earl Grey tea is even named after Charles Grey, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1830-1834. There are several stories interpreting this name. According to some of them, the count receives a wonderful tea from the Chinese emperor as a reward for saving his son during a shipwreck; others claim that the count saved the son of an Indian rajah from a tiger, for which he was awarded a special tea. But the most plausible story says that a ship belonging to the count with a cargo of tea and bergamot oil got into a strong storm, several barrels of oil broke and filled bales with tea. It was a pity to throw away the precious cargo, and they tried to sell it. And since the tea "spoiled" by bergamot caused unprecedented success, since then it has been specially prepared.

4. Mauritania. Average consumption — 3.22 kg per capita

3. Ireland. Average consumption — 3.22 kg per capita

2. Morocco. Average consumption — 4.34 kg per capita

1. Turkey. Average consumption — 6.87 kg per capita