小小的茶树(山茶属)却对欧洲人的健康、风俗和社会习惯产生了重大影响,若考虑到西方至十七世纪才开始接触茶叶,这种影响就更加非比寻常;欧洲首次正式从亚洲进口茶叶是在一六一○年。最初茶叶在广为接受之前主要用于医药领域。例如 The small tea tree (camellia) has had a major impact on the health, customs and social habits of Europeans, and the effect is even more remarkable if it is taken into account that the West did not come into contact with tea until the seventeenth century; the first formal Asian tea imports are in 1610. Initially the tea was widely used in medicine before it was widely accepted. E.g