Did you know that tea, the most popular drink in the world (after water), was invented by accident? Many people believe that tea was first drunk about 5,000 years ago. It is said that a Chinese ruler called Shen Nong was the first to discover tea as a drink. One day Shen Nong was boiling drinking water over an open fire. Some leaves from a tea plant fell into the water and remained there for some time. It produced a nice smell so he tasted the brown water. It was quite delicious, and so, one of the world’s favorite drinks was invented.

A few thousand years later, Lu Yu, “the saint of tea”, mentioned Shen Nong in his book Cha Jing. The book describes how tea plants were grown and used to make tea. It also discusses where the finest tea leaves were produced and what kinds of water were used.

It is believed that tea was brought to Korea and Japan during the 6th and 7th centuries. In England, tea didn’t appear until around 1660, but in less than 100 years, it had become the national drink. The tea trade from China to Western countries took place in the 19th century. This helped to spread the popularity of tea and the tea plant to more places around the world. Even though many people now know about tea culture, the Chinese are without doubt the ones who best understand the nature of tea.

As we know, fast food is quick and convenient（方便的）. We can find fast food restaurants easily and we don’t need to wait long to get the food. Fast food is usually not very expensive.

Eating fast food is not good for our health. If we eat too much fast food for a long time, it can bring some health problems, like overweight（超重）and heart disease（心脏病）.

More and more people care about（关心）health. The government also calls on（呼吁）young people to stay away from fast food. If the owners（店主）of fast food restaurants want to attract（吸引）more customers, they have to take some helpful tips.

Here are some tips for the owners.

They should stop selling food made with unhealthy things.

They should try to sell food with fruit and vegetables.

Why not write down the information of the new food on the leaflets（传单）and hand them out? In that way, more people will know their new food easily.

In North America, people are always in a hurry. Children have special lessons, sports and activities after school. Parents often work late and don’t get home until 7 or 8 o’clock at night. More than 50% of women have full-time jobs. And many people do part-time jobs.

When a family want to eat a meal together, they are too busy to prepare the food. That is why fast food is so popular in North America. People spend about 40% of their money buying fast food.

Fast food is the food such as pizza, sandwiches and fried chicken. People can buy fast food from a restaurant chain like Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and KFC. Fast food saves work and time, but it’s usually junk food.

Fast food is popular in many countries.

American fast food companies now have restaurants all over the world. But not everyone is happy about the spread of North American fast food. Some people in Italy want to fight against it. They don’t want fast food chains to open any more in their country. They also want to fight against the spread of fast food around the world.