Linnaeus and the tea
As Annika Windahl Pontén shares in this episode with us, even Swedish botanist Carl von Linné was fascinated by the tea plant. He gave Camellia sinensis its name. The tea trade allowed him to get access to tea plants, that, after repeated trials of transfer them to Sweden, he wanted to cultivate. The reason for this was the high taxes on tea that the trade brought with it. He also tested alternative plants for making tea, such as his beloved Linnea borealis. However, neither of the two ambitious projects were unfortunately fruitful. Linné also wrote scientific works on the effects of tea and coffee on the human body and lectured his students about this.