Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to China, India and other East Asian countries. According to legend, tea has been known in China since about 2700 BCE. For millennia it was a medicinal beverage obtained by boiling fresh leaves in water, but around the 3rd century CE it became a daily drink, and tea cultivation and processing began. Herbal teas are not made from the Camellia plant but from dried herbs, spices, flowers, fruit, seeds, roots, or leaves of other plants; they do not typically contain caffeine as do traditional teas.