【正文】 .......................................................................... 14 1 I. Introduction Tea was foremost grown in China and then spread to abroad, and has always been popular all over the world as a traditional beverage. Tea has never lost its popularity especially in recent years, even the market share of modern drinks is great increasing .Today, people have gradually realized the importance of anic foods and drinks, and tea is being considered the natural and healthy drinks which are promoted by people all over the world. Tea culture has long been talked and discussed by people from home and abroad as a popular topic. China and the western countries like UK and US are major tea drinking nations. With the evolution of tea drinking history, tea has severally developed a unique culture in these nations. As a popular topic, tea culture has been discussed by the academia of different countries. But the contrast and parison between these two tea cultures has been focused on the differences rather than the similarities and fusion. The parison of Chinese and Western tea culture is therefore an important and fascinating topic in international munication. In this paper, we will first review some important aspects of tea culture in these countries, and in the conclusion, we will focus on both the differences, the similarities and interaction of Chinese and Western tea culture. “When we get up in the morning, the first things we should get ready are firewood, rice, edible oil, salt, soy, vinegar and tea,” this is said by an old Chinese saying. It tell people tea is a necessity of life in China. According to the recorded history, China found and started to use tea dating back to almost 3000 years ago. Tea, not merely as a drink, has been popularized and developed in China all the time. Moreover, it has spread to many foreign countries. As we all know, Chinese silk made an outstanding contribution to the world’s material and spiritual civilization, and Chinese tea so did this. Tea has not been known by Europeans until the 16th century and has not been introduced to Britain by the Dutch until the mid 17th century, even it is early discovery in Asia. (The British Tea Company 11)Later from this, tea has been an important drink in western countries for several centuries, and is drunk all day in most Western households. Throughout many centuries that the western people have been drinking tea, it has had a great impact on 2 the nation’s culture and lifestyle patterns through the ages. Tea has seepaged into the culture of western countries. II. China Tea Culture A. The origin of tea China grow, produce and drink tea at the first time, and be saw as the original tea growingarea. The discovery and the use of tea in China can be traced back to 3000 years ago. There is a legendary story runs, “in order to prevent people from eating the poisonous plants, shennong tasted hundreds of wild plants to see which were poisonous and which were edible.” One day he got poisoned when gathering and tasting herbs. Fortunately, he found a plant, tea, which helped him to get rid of the toxin and finally he survived. People continually retold this story from generation to generation, paying great respect to their ancestor who pioneered agriculture and Chinese medicine. (Theodore, Chan amp。clock, and British more enjoy drinking assorted tea. The Britain has the largest tea consumption in the world. People in Britain drink tea as same as three meals a day, there is morning tea, afternoon tea and evening tea points. Afternoon tea is not just black tea, sandwiches and snacks will be acpanied, people are more in the pursuit of a leisurely mood at the free time of ending busy work. (Tea Comes to Englang 22) 1. The reason why British people like black tea Due to tea ceremony is important in Britain and British homeland is not fit for planting tea tree, so the tea trade in Britain is developed. British tea are mainly imported from China and India. Besides, the tea ceremony of British always choose black tea. Black tea is soft fermented and it can be stored for a long time, so it gets widely spread. What’s more is that Britain is surrounded by water and the weather is cold and wet, and the warm of black tea can make people feel fortable, so the British love black tea more. British people prefer to black tea and the tea ceremony focuses on black tea are based on above mentioned. 2. The habit of British people drinking tea British people spend about a third time of their lifetime with tea. They usually have a cup of tea in bed in the early morning. Later is a cup of breakfast tea. On 11:00pm, they will sit down and have a cup of morning tea no matter whether there is work on hand or not. Lunch time with a cup of tea is necessary. The famous afternoon tea time is at 4:00 pm . Besides, there are high tea before dinner, night tea before 9 going to sleep. (British Tea Drinking Customs 8)Next we will talk about the habit of the British people drink tea. The origin of the afternoon tea dating back to 1840 years ago. Duchess Anna wants to gather friends to spend the stupid time every afternoon when she is boring. Because the only formal part is the dinner part at that time, she spends that stupid time with her friends by prepareing some dessert with tea, and afternoon tea time is well known for this. There are a lot of etiquette need to pay attention to, despite drinking afternoon tea make people happy and fortable. (Polite and society 16) In Victorian times, men need to wear tuxedo and women need to wear robes at afternoon tea time. Even today men also need to wear tuxedo, takes top hat and hold an umbrella, women must wear white dresses and wear a hat at the afternoon tea time every year in Buckingham Palace. People usually talk in