The Origin of Tea
First Discovery
According to Chinese mythology, in 2737 BC the
Chinese Emperor, Shen Nung, scholar and herbalist, was sitting beneath
a tree while his servant boiled drinking water. A leaf from the tree dropped
into the water and Shen Nung decided to try the brew. The tree was a wild
tea tree. There are many authentic and supposed references to tea in the
centuries before Christ, according to the Chinese dictionary dated circa
350 AD. The Chinese t'u was often used to describe shrubs other
than tea, hence the confusion when Confucius allegedly referred to tea
or t'u when writing about the "sow thistle" plant in the
Book of Odes.
From the earliest times tea was reknowned for its properties as a healthy,
refreshing drink. By the third century AD many stories were being told
and some written about tea and the benefits of tea drinking, but it was
not until the Tang Dynasty (6818 - 906 BC) that tea became China's national
drink and the word ch'a was used to describe tea.
The spread of cultivation throughout China and Japan is largely accredited
to the movement of Buddhist priests throughout the region.
The first book on tea "Ch'a Ching", circa 780 AD, was
written by the Chinese author Lu Yu. It comprises three volumes and covers
tea from its growth through to its making and drinking, as well as covering
a historical summary and famous early tea plantation. There are many illustrations
of tea making utensils and some say that the book inspired the Buddhist
priests to create the Japanese tea ceremony.
The modern term "tea" derives from early Chinese dialect words
- such as Tchai, Cha and Tay - used both to describe the beverage and the
leaf. Known as Camellia sinensis, tea is an evergreen plant of the Camellia
family. It has smooth, shiny pointed leaves which look similar to the privet
hedge leaf found in British gardens.
The Tea Plant
Camellia sinensis is indigenous to China and parts of India.
The wild tea plant can develop into a tree 30 metres high, so that monkeys
were trained to pick the leaves and throw them down for collection below.
Today, under cultivation, Camellia Sinensis is kept to a height of approximately
one metre for easy plucking purposes. There are more than 1,500 teas to
choose from more than 25 different listed countries around the world but
the main producers are India, Sri
Lanka, Kenya, Malawi, Indonesia and China. It is cultivated as a plantation
crop, likes acidic soil and a warm climate with at least 50 inches of rain
per annum.
Other factors affecting flavour characteristics are the methods of processing
and, of course, the blending together of teas from different areas and
regions OR the additions of flowers, fruit, oils, herbs or spices from
other plants.
The first mention of tea outside China and Japan is said to be by the
Arabs in 850 AD and it was they who were reputed to have brought it to
Europe via the Venetians circa 1559. However, it is the Portugese and Dutch
who claim the credit of bringing tea and tea drinking to Europe. The Portugese
opened up the sea routes to China, some say as early as 1515. Jesuit priests
travelling on the ships are reputed to have brought the tea drinking habit
back to Portugal, while the Dutch sailors manning the ships were said to
have encouraged the Dutch merchants to enter the trade, and had set up
a regular shipment of tea to ports in France, Holland and the Baltic coast
in 1610. England entered the trade via the East India Company, or the John
Company as it was known, in the mid to late 17th Century.
The History of Tea in the United Kingdom
The early beginnings of tea in Britain are obscure.
The East India Company, under their charter granted by Elizabeth I to the
Directors, had the monopoly of importing goods from outside Europe and
recorded ships reaching Britain in 1637, but no record of tea dealings
with Chinese merchants appears until 1644. Sailors bringing back packets
of tea from the Far East as presents, led to its introduction into London's
coffee houses. According to the East India Company records, its ships reached
First Sale
The merchant Thomas Garway was among the first to trade tea in Britain.
He offered it in dry and liquid form at his coffee house in Exchange Alley
in the City of London, holding his first public sale in 1657.
In 1660, Garway issued a broadsheet selling tea for sale, extolling
it (at £6 and £10 per pound) as "wholesome, preserving
perfect health until extreme old age, good for clearing the sight,"
able to cure "gripping of the guts, cold, dropsies, scurveys"
and claiming that "it could make the body active and lusty."
First Advertisement
The first tea advertisement - announcing the sale of "China Tcha,
Tay or Tee" - appeared on 30 September 1658, in the newspaper Mercurius
Politicus, booked by the owner of The Sultaness Head Coffee House. Tea
rapidly gained popularity in these establishments and by 1700, was on sale
by more than 500 coffee houses in London. Tavern keepers were dismayed
as the coffee house vogue swept into being, as was the Government by the
decline in the revenues from hard liquor sales.
By the middle of the 18th century, however, tea had replaced ale and
gin as the drink of the masses and had become Britain's most popular beverage
First Tea Laws
In 1675, Charles II forbade by proclamation the sale of tea, coffee,
chocolate and sherbert from private houses. Designed to suppress sedition
and intrigue, this act was so unpopular that it never became statute law.
Six days later he repeated the proclamation. Act XII of 1676 imposed duty
on the sale of such beverages and required licences of coffee house keepers:
but this also proved impossible to enforce. Taxes on tea nonetheless remained
punitive until 1784 when it was reduced by the Commutation Act to counter
smuggling into the UK.
British Tea Drinking Customs
Afternoon Tea
Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, is reputed
to have originated the idea of afternoon tea in the early 1800s. She conceived
the idea of having tea around four or five in the afternoon to ward off
the hunger pangs between lunch and dinner. Some time earlier, the Earl
of Sandwich had the idea of putting a filling between two slices of bread.
These habits soon became a good reason for social gatherings, and started
a trend that is still an integral part of British life.
Tea Gardens
As the popularity of tea spread, it also became an essential part of
people's entertainment outside the home. By 1732 an evening spent dancing
or watching fireworks in Vauxhall or Ranelagh Gardens would be rounded
off by serving tea. Tea gardens then opened all over the country on Saturdays
and Sundays, with tea being served as the high point of the afternoon.
Dancing was included as part of the day's festivities, so
from the tea gardens came the idea of the tea dance, which remained fashionable
in Britain until World War II when they disappeared from the social scene.
Tea dances are, however, once again becoming an area of interest.
High Tea
For the working and farming communities, afternoon tea became high tea.
As the main meal of the day, high tea was a cross between the delicate
afternoon meal enjoyed in the ladies' drawing rooms and the dinner enjoyed
in houses of the gentry at seven or eight in the evening. With the meats,
bread and cakes served at high tea, hot tea was taken.
Tea Shops
In 1864 the manageress of an Aerated Bread Company shop persuaded her
directors to allow her to serve food and liquid refreshments in the shop.
She dispensed tea to her more favoured customers and soon attracted many
clients clamouring for the same service. Not only did she unwittingly start
the fashion for tea shops but also one foundation of women's emancipation,
since an unchaperoned lady could meet friends in a tea shop without sullying
her reputation. Tea shops spread throughout Britain, becoming as much a
tradition as tea itself: and even today, despite the plethora of fast food
and drink outlets, this tradition remains, attracting huge numbers of UK
and foreign tourists.
Smuggling
By the middle of the 18th Century, the tax on tea
had reached 119% - much higher than most British taxes today - and naturally
enough, was very unpopular among a tea drinking population.
So smuggling into Britain began, to evade taxation. Because of the popularity
of tea, many types of people became involved in the smuggling, from farm
workers and shop keepers to priests and politicians. Syndicates were formed
to help move and sell the smuggled tea all around the country.
Smuggled tea came mainly from Holland and Scandinavia, brought over
by Dutch and Scandinavian merchant ships to anchor off English and Scottish
coasts.
Taken ashore by fleets of small craft crewed by local fishermen, the
tea was smuggled inland, often through underground passages or along hidden
pathways. Above ground, carters drove the tea to secret hide-outs for storage
in secret passages, under covered trapdoors or behind false walls. Often
the best place for storage was the local church!
Even smuggled tea was expensive, however, and by 1777 could cost anything
up to 10s 6d (53p) per pound - about one-third of the average weekly wage
at that time. Because of this cost, and because tea was both popular and
profitable, the practice of adulteration began, even though banned by Act
of Parliament in 1725. Black tea had willow, liquorice, elder and sloe
leaves added to it or & 'smouch' made from ash leaf and sheeps dung!
Even old tea leaves, already used and then dried, were mixed with new tea.
Adulteration was a highly profitable business in which people were prepared
to risk the heavy fines imposed by special laws.
Smuggling continued to increase, so that in 1784 Prime Minister William
Pitt the Younger had the Commutation Act passed by Parliament which slashed
the tax from 119% to 12.5%. This effectively ended tea smuggling in Britain.
Adulteration remained profitable however, and continued until the English
Food and Drug Act of 1875 imposed heavy fines or imprisonment against the
practice.
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party is famous in the history of
American Independence. As an early example of American rebellion against
British Rule, it represents one of the significant events leading ultimately
to the American War of Independence. On 16 December 1773, between thirty
and sixty men, disguised as Indians, boarded ships owned by the British
East India Company. Once aboard, they smashed open the tea cargoes from
wooden chests and threw them overside. Washed up on shore next morning,
the cargo was of course worthless. Other ports followed suit: and every
patriotic American gave up tea drinking and turned to coffee.
What led to this incident? To raise
money, particularly for military purposes, the British Government would
levy tax on imported products such as tea. At that time, tea drinking was
as popular in the American colonies as it was in Britain: and in 1773 Americans
were outraged by the imposition by Lord North of tax on tea in both Britain
and America. This resentment was further fuelled by lack of American representation
in the British Parliament, giving rise to the famous slogan "No taxation
without representation."
At the same time, the Tea Act of 1773 gave the East India Company the right
to ship tea from China directly to America.
This was enacted to counter the American practice of buying (and sometimes
smuggling) tea in from Holland and even direct from China via the Dutch,
a practice which reduced trade for the East India Company. This Act put
many American tea importers out of business as they incurred a tax the
locals didn't want. The Americans decided that the British had interfered
once too often and the Boston Tea Party took place.
The Tea Clippers
Until the mid 1800's, cargo ships including those
carrying tea, usually took between twelve and fifteen months to make passage
from ports in the East to those in London. East India Company ships, given
exclusive control of the tea trade by Act of Parliament in 1832, raced
to be the first ships to land tea in Britain.
By the middle of the 19th Century, the races between the tea clippers
had become a great annual competition. The race began in China
where the clippers would leave the Canton River, race down the China Sea,
across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, up the Atlantic,
past the Azores and into the English 
Channel.
The clippers would then be towed up the River Thames by tugs and the race
would be won by the first ship to hurl ashore its cargo at the docks. The
first cargo home fetched as much as an extra sixpence (2.5p) per 1lb (450g)
- and gained a cash bonus for Captain and crew.
The Americans were the first to design a new type of clipper. Recognising
that the old ships had to carry too much weight, they designed a more streamlined
vessel (based on the old Baltimore clippers) capable of carrying greater
cargo (providing it was loaded correctly) at a greater speed. The new,
faster clipper was born - so called because they were designed to "clip";
or get the last ounce of speed from the wind. The first of these three
masted, full-rigged vessels was the 750 ton"Rainbow" launched
in New York in 1845. Every line promised speed - from the sharp, curving
stem to the slim, tapering stern, with tall raking masts carrying a huge
area of sail. The journey time of the slow East Indiamen clippers was halved.
The first British built clipper, the "Stornaway", was launched
for the traders Jardine Matheson in 1850 in Aberdeen. Many others followed:
the "Lightning", an American built ship, covered 4.36 sea miles
in 24 hours an average of eighteen miles per knot (this according to users),
a record at this time and nearly as fast as a modern ocean liner.
Perhaps the most famous clipper ever built was the British clipper "Cutty
Sark". The Cutty Sark was built in 1868 and only carried tea on just
eight occasions.
Teas influence on British Boundaries, Commerce
and Industry
Very early tea cups had no handles, being originally
imported from China where such cups traditionally
had no handles. So as tea drinking gained popularity, so did the demand
for more British-style tea ware. This fuelled the rapid growth of the English
pottery and porcelain industry, which soon became world famous. Most factories
making tea ware were located in the Midlands area which became known as
"The Potteries".
Tea in two World Wars
In World War I, the German U-boat blockade drastically
reduced tea imports into Britain: the ensuing black market led to rationing
for civilians and prices were fixed by the Government. Tea rationing in
World War II was less drastic, although virtually all other foods were
severely rationed. Believed to act as a national morale booster, tea stocks
were dispersed in over 500 different locations around the country to minimise
the chances of destruction by air-raid. Tea was drunk in vast quantities
by civilians and the armed forces: by D-Day, for example, the Royal Navy
alone was drinking nearly 4000 tonnes a year.