Tea Time

13 THINGS - April 21 is National Tea Day.

- Patty LaNoue Stearns

1 POP THE kettle on: Actually, a dozen days throughout the year celebrate tea in its many forms (chai, iced, bubble, etc.), and on any given day, more than half of Americans have a cup. Together, we drink more than 85 billion servings each year, most of it Lipton. Bigelow is the next biggest brand name.

2 TEA IS second to water as the most popular beverage in the world. It was discovered by accident nearly 5,000 years ago, according to legend. As the story goes, Chinese Emperor Shen Nong sipped it first in 2737 BC, after leaves from the tree above him blew into his pot of boiled water. While tea is popular in China, Brits brew it more often (as English Breakfast, English Afternoon, and Irish Breakfast teas can all attest). But another country beats them all: Turkey drinks the most tea per capita, followed by Ireland and then the United Kingdom.

3 TEA'S 3,000-PLUS varieties boil down to a handful of main categories: black, green, yellow, white, purple, oolong and pu-erh. But they all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, a tropical evergreen shrub native to central Southeast Asia.

4 GREEN TEAS, like Japanese sencha, have low levels of caffeine, while black teas, like orange pekoe, pack more of a punch. Perhaps you've heard that tea has more caffeine than coffee? It's technically true: By weight, dry tea leaves contain more caffeine than coffee beans do. But once the beverages are brewed, even black tea has only about half the jolt of java.