New archaeological discoveries in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, suggest that China may have been cultivating tea plants more than 3,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The Zhejiang Cultural Relics and Archaeological Research Center released its new findings about the Tianluo Mountain site on Tuesday that showed Chinese ancestors started cultivating tea plants about 6,000 years ago. Sun Guoping, a researcher with the center who is captain of the exploration project on Tianluo Mountain, said that after years of testing, the roots discovered in the area proved to belong to the earliest tea plants cultivated by humans in China.

"Before this discovery, historical and archaeological records indicated that Chinese people started growing tea plants about 3,000 years ago. The discovery proved the activity started 3,000 years earlier," he said.