Tea History in EnglandWhen a person thinks of the origin of tea, China is always the answer. However, the culture of drinking tea is most always associated with the British. It’s interesting to note that England was actually one of the last countries to partake of this ancient beverage. The custom of drinking tea dates back to the third millennium B.C. in China, and it was not until the mid 1600’s that it first came to England. Quite surprisingly, it was in a coffee house owned by Thomas Garway in London where tea was first offered. He sold the beverage and the dry tea around 1657 and touted its medicinal effects as “preserving perfect health until extreme old age”. Garways claims had the ring of truth in them, but his claims of its health benefits did little to popularize this beverage. It took royalty to set the trend. Coffee houses were a hub of social and business news. Literature, politics and art were discussed freely. They were patronized entirely by men. In fact, some of those coffee houses evolved into “men only” clubs, one such being established by Edward Lloyd. It later became the insurance company Lloyds of London. Because of the fluent political discussions, the British government felt threatened by them. Charles II issued a proclamation ordering that all coffee houses close permanently on January 10, 1676, but public outcry defeated him. He was forced to reverse his decision two days before that deadline. In 1662 Catherine of Braganza of Portugal married King Charles II. She had a preference for tea, as it was already popular in most of Europe. She replaced wine, ale and spirits with tea as the court drink. Because tea was served primarily in male frequented coffee houses, she was instrumental in the acceptability for women to drink the beverage. The English East India Company brought small gifts of tea from Europe in an attempt to please Charles II, but the company didn’t consider tea to be worth importing from China until later in the century. When tea and other imports from Holland were prohibited, the English East India Company began the trade of this commodity. By the turn of the century, tea gained popularity in the coffee houses. This was very distressing to tavern owners and the government to whom they paid their liquor taxes. The government got around that issue by taxing tea and requiring the coffee houses to have a license to sell tea. Tavern owners continued to lose revenue. In 1708, East India Company was formed. They had their own fleet, army and financial capacity. It was the crux that helped form the British Empire. The importation of tea from China was more profitable than importing coffee and by 1750 tea became the favored drink of the British lower class. By this time, tax on tea had reached a ridiculous amount of 119%. This heavy taxation did, however, create a new industry – tea smuggling. Since imports from Holland were prohibited, their ships would stand offshore as smugglers went to them an unloaded the tea. Local churches were the preferred hiding place. Smuggling didn’t bring down the price of tea that much. As had happened in the Ukraine, the tea was compromised to expand its bulk. Their additives were somewhat less unsafe, as they would add licorice, willow and other plants. When the Commutation Act of 1784 dropped the tax from 119% to 12.5%, the smuggling practice was ended. Though the East India Company had a monopoly on the tea trade, it took over a year to bring tea from China. Though it was the Americans who built the first clipper ships, the British were close behind. These ships were very fast and there was a race to get the precious cargo to the docks and reap the highest price for the tea. The biggest problem England had in the tea trade with China was that the Chinese would only sell tea in exchange for silver. It was too expensive for England to ship the silver. This created yet another industry…. opium. They brought opium to China from India, sold it to the Chinese for silver and then bought the tea with the silver. This continued until about 1839 when large.quantities of English opium were destroyed, starting the First Opium War. The Opium Wars continued until 1860 and during that time, trade between England and China fell apart. This led to the beginning of the tea industry in India. Tea blending began in England in 1870 when R. Twining & Co. Ltd. blended teas to improve the taste and standardize quality. This resulted in blends such as English Breakfast. In 1875, Sir Thomas Lipton opened his first shop. By the end of the nineteenth century, the foundation was laid for the modern tea trade. In England, Indian and Ceylon teas became more popular than those from China. One reason for tea’s increased popularity over coffee was it’s preparation. Since coffee could only be used once, it was less expensive to prepare tea, since it could be brewed more than once. The price of tea per pound has always been more than coffee, but less tea is used per cup. During the First World War, a strong temperance movement catapulted tea to even more popularity as it was an alternative to alcohol. Tea consumption reach nearly 10 pounds per capita yearly. It was decisively a key component in British culture.
|
