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The Chinese have been drinking tea since at least 2700 BCE. For several thousands years , tea made by letting tea leaves steep in boiling water was drunk mostly as medicine.
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Rocket technology was developed in China during the Song dynasty. They were powered by a black powder made of saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur
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It was accidentally discovered by alchemists working with saltpeter looking for the secret to eternal life.
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The Chinese developed the first mechanical clock in about the 8th century. The new clock was more accurate than earlier timekeeping devices, such as sundials and hourglasses.
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The invention of paper made another key development possible: printing. In about the 7th century. The Chinese invented a technique called woodblock printing.
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The compass is a magnetized needle that aligns itself with Earth's magnetic poles so that one end points north and the other south.
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The Chinese first made steel, a very useful metal, before 200 BCE. Steel is made from iron, but it is less brittle than iron and easier to bend into different shapes
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The Chinese invented the art of paper-making by the second century C.E. The earliest Chinese paper was probably made from hemp and then the bark of the mulberry tree
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Another Chinese invention is a type of fine pottery called porcelain. Some historians think that the Chinese produced the first porcelain as early as the 1st century CE.
