Tea As A Burial Item

The large number of items evacuated from Lady Hou, Xin Zhui's tomb, included an entire box of tea leaves. This shows tea used to be pan of the burial offerings during the Han Dynasty.

The “Pageboy Contract”

During the time of the western Han Dynasty, once the lyricist Wang Bao bought a servant Bian Liao from his friend's widow. Bian Liao was unwilling, but there was nothing he could do. He told Wang Bao, “You must clearly state everything you want me to do in a contract. If it isn't stated in the contract, I won’t do it." This became the "Pageboy Contract" that we see today. In the contract, Wang Bao clearly stated "Buying tea in Wuyang" and "Brewing Tea with the tea set."
The contract reveals that even during that time, one had to buy tea from Wuyang (currently the Mt. Peng area in Sichuan), and there were specific tea sets for brewing tea.
Tea drinking further spread toward the mid and lower Yangtze River areas from the Han Dynasty to the time of the Southern and Northern dynasties.