How to add default value for html <textarea>?

Here is my jsFiddle example. this works fine:

<textarea name='awesome'>Default value</textarea>

You can use placeholder Attribute, which doesn't add a default value but might be what you are looking out for :

<textarea placeholder="this text will show in the textarea"></textarea>

Check it out here - http://jsfiddle.net/8DzCE/949/

Important Note ( As suggested by Jon Brave in the comments ) :

Placeholder Attribute does not set the value of a textarea. Rather "The placeholder attribute represents a short hint (a word or short phrase) intended to aid the user with data entry when the control has no value" [and it disappears as soon as user clicks into the textarea]. It will never act as "the default value" for the control. If you want that, you must put the desired text inside the Here is the actual default value, as per other answers here