Bring the water in your kettle to a boil. Deposit a handful of loose leaves into a filter and allow them to infuse in the boiled water.

Let the leaves steep for a while before removing the filter. The resulting liquid is what is known as tea.

Different varieties of tea vary widely in flavor and have different "personalities", for which different people might develop different interpretations.

With regard to my own interpretations, built over five years of exploration, black tea is intrepid, forthright, and not wary of flouting its strong flavor, taking over your taste buds the moment it hits your lips.

To the contrary, green tea is mild and subtle, like your least outgoing friend whose profundity only shows through after spending a bit of time together.

Oolong tea is opulent and sophisticated.

Da Hong Pao, a variety of Oolong tea, is one of the most expensive teas in China, and is usually reserved for the most honorable guests.

Its literal English translation is "big red robe". Even the name sounds regal, right?

Tea is believed to have originated in China thousands of years ago.

According to legend, in 2737 BC, the great emperor, Shen Nung, was sitting beneath a tree for an afternoon siesta.

His servant was boiling him some water to drink when a sudden gust of wind blew a leaf into the pot.

When he awoke, he tasted the decoction, and found it surprisingly tasty and refreshing.

The validity of the story is unclear, but the association between the discovery of tea and Shen Nung is still quite fitting,

since tea has proven to have great health benefits, and Shen Nung is considered to be one of the most medicinally-knowledgeable emperors in Chinese history.

He is often lauded as the protagonist behind ancient China's transformation into an agriculturally successful country, teaching his people to utilize the land and its abundant crops to progress civilization.

Now let's fast-forward to the Tang Dynasty (618 -906 AD). Tea had already been established as the national drink by then.

It was so ingrained in the culture that a tea expert named Lu Yu even wrote an encyclopedic book about China's tea culture,

identifying different varieties of tea, their distinct properties, and the proper ways in which tea should be prepared and consumed.