China’s history of exportation of tea was 1500 years old and may be divided into four periods:

(1)The earliest period of exportation: from 475 to 1644(the first year of Manchu Qing Dynasty).The export business spanning over 1170 years was done on a barter systen swapping tea for other articles.

The earliest occasion of China tea export was the appearance of traders from Turkey between 473-476 on the north-western border of China to swap their goods for tea. This is considered as the earliest record of barter trade of tea done on an overland route.
Tang government had in 714(2nd year of Kaiyuan, the reign of emperor Li Longji)put an office in charge of foreign trade via sea route (the Shibosi).

China tea by that time had two different ways to go to Western Asia and the Middle East. By the middle of the 9th century, a certain quantity of China tea had arrived at Korea and Japan.

The transition of the classic China tea to Multi-species tea started in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and paved the way for large-scale development of overseas trade in the Qing Dynasty.

The Eunuch Zheng Ho of the early Ming Dynasty imperial household, himself a brave man of excellent talent of organization, headed seven times his giant fleet to visit some thirty countries in Southern and Eastern Asia and the Eastern Africa coast between 1405 and 1433. The Persia (now lran) merchants, European travelers and missionaries from the West came and return, bringing with them Chinese Culture as well as tea to their homelands. It paved the way of subsequent advertising and sales of China tea in big quantities to Europe.