The History of Tea

Tea drinking is a pastime that is identified closely with the English. According to national statistics, every man, woman and child in Great Britain consumes at least four cups a day, and there is almost no occasion where a nice cup of tea is not appropriate.

An Ancient Tonic
The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, is an evergreen of the Camellia family with smooth, shiny pointed leaves. In the wild, it grows into a tree. Legend has it that 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 a wild tea tree dropped into the water and Shen Nung decided to try the brew. The resulting infusion cleared his mind and relaxed him wonderfully, and so he drank it continuously for the next seven years, naming it Tai (peace).

Stories of tea’s health properties date from the earliest times. In the Tang Dynasty (618 AD - 906 AD) tea became China’s national drink and the word ch'a was used to describe tea. The modern word “tea” derives from early Chinese dialect words, such as Tchai, Cha and Tay. The first book on tea Ch’a Ching., circa 780 AD, was written by the Chinese author Lu Yu. Its three volumes cover tea from its growth through to its making and drinking. Some say that the book inspired the Buddhist priests to create the Japanese tea ceremony.

Tea Arrives in Britain
The Arabs are thought to be the first to bring tea to Europe via the Venetians around 1559. However, it was the Portuguese and Dutch who developed a thriving tea trade in Europe. Jesuit priests who had traveled with the Portuguese explorers starting in 1515, brought the tea drinking habit back to Portugal, while the sailors manning the ships encouraged the Dutch merchants to enter the trade. By 1610, there were regular shipments of tea to ports in France, Holland and the Baltic coast.

In Great Britain, The East India Company, under their charter granted by Elizabeth I, had the monopoly of importing goods from outside Europe. Although East India Company ships were sailing into British ports in 1637, the company records do not report trading with Chinese merchants until 1644. British sailors bringing back packets of tea from the Far East as gifts, led to its introduction into London's coffee houses.

In 1657, merchant Thomas Garway was among the first to offer tea in Britain. He sold it at his coffee house in both dry and liquid form, promoting it as "wholesome, preserving perfect health until extreme old age.” On September 30, 1658, The Sultaness Head Coffee House ran the first newspaper advertisement announcing the sale of “China Tcha, Tay or Tee” in the Mercurius Politicus.

Tea rapidly gained popularity in these establishments and, by 1700, was on sale by more than 500 coffee houses in London. Tea drinking received a boost when Queen Anne chose tea over ale as her regular breakfast drink. Tavern keepers were dismayed, as was the Government, by the decline in revenues from hard liquor sales. By the middle of the 18th century, tea had become Britain's most popular drink, replacing ale and gin as the drink. To offset the decline in tax revenues from liquor, the government imposed heavy taxes on tea.

The tax on tea soon reached a burdensome 119% and fueled widespread smuggling into Britain. Because tea was so popular, people from all walks of life became involved in smuggling—fishermen, farm workers, politicians and clergy. Syndicates helped move the smuggled tea around the country. Local churches were often used to store the contraband. The smuggling became so widespread, that in 1784 Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger had the Commutation Act passed by Parliament which cut the tax from 119% to 12.5% and ended smuggling.

The Tea Clippers
Until the mid 1800's, cargo ships usually took between twelve and fifteen months to make passage from ports in the East to London. The Americans were the first to construct a new type of clipper designed to carry more cargo at greater speed. Called clippers because they were designed to "clip" the last ounce of speed from the wind, these tall sailing ships cut the journey time in half.

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 Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party is famous in the history of American Independence. In 1773 the British Government passed a law called 'The Tea Act' which meant that tea in America had to be sold at a price which included a high British tax. The ships with the first consignment of taxed tea berthed at Griffin's Wharf, Boston, on the 16th of  December 1773. Under the cover of darkness, 50 men disguised as Red Indians boarded British ships in the harbor at Boston and tossed £10,000 worth of tea overboard as a sign of protest. Other ports followed suit: and every patriotic American gave up tea drinking and turned to coffee.

Fortunately for tea lovers, tea drinking has regained its popularity and American consumers have a wide choice of fine English teas from which to choose.

Tea Gardens and Tea Dances
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 lost popularity. Tea dances are still held in Britain today.

The English Tradition of Afternoon Tea
The very English custom of taking afternoon tea was started in the 19th Century by Anna, the Seventh Duchess of Bedford. Lunch in those days was rather early and dinner was not served until late in the evening. Every afternoon the Duchess found that she was rather hungry and started taking a pot of tea with some light refreshments in her room. She began inviting her friends to join her and very soon taking tea in the middle of the afternoon became the fashionable thing to do.

Elegant tea-ware made afternoon tea even more of a special occasion. Tables would be set with lace table linen. Tea services would be made of silver or bone china. And there would be a host of accessories including tea knives, cake stands, sandwich trays, tea caddies with blending bowls, and pretty tea strainers. Fine porcelain tea cups were arranged on silver trays and dainty sandwiches, cakes and biscuits were set out invitingly on silver dishes. The lady of the house would brew the tea, measuring out the leaves from an ornate tea caddy. Soon afternoon tea became so popular that it became one of the mainstays of the British way of life.

The Invention of the Sandwich
At around the same time that Anna, Duchess of Bedford, invented the practice of taking Afternoon Tea, another member of the aristocracy made a long lasting contribution to the British tea drinking tradition. Lord John Sandwich invented a tasty combination of a filling between two slices of bread - the sandwich. The sandwich remains a mainstay of both British and American cuisine.

American Inventions
The tea bag was invented in the U.S. in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan, a thrifty tea importer, who replaced the large sample tins of tea he was sending to retail customers with small, individual silk bags of tea. Filter paper has since replaced the silk and the tea bag has become a staple. Approximately 97% of the leaf tea sold in the U.S. comes in tea bags. In Great Britain, the figure is 82%.

Iced tea was made popular at the St. Louis World’s Fair in the sweltering summer of 1904. When no one would drink the hot tea offered by the Indian Tea Pavilion, promoter Richard Blechyden poured hot tea over ice-filled glasses. Although iced tea had been common in the South, the fair Introcued it to the rest of the nation. This very American drink has been a hit ever since. Most tea consumed in the U.S. is iced.

The London Tea Auction

On Monday, June 29th 1998, the last London Tea Auction took place. The last lot of tea sold at the final auction was secured by Jonathan Wild, Chairman of Taylors of Harrogate, with a bid of 555 per kilo, a grand total of 24,420, for a single chest of Ceylon Flowery Pekoe from the Hellbode Estate in Sri Lanka. The bid was the highest in the history of the auction.

The first auction dedicated to tea took place in 1706. Soon, the London tea auction became the crossroads of the tea trade. Growers from around the world put their tea on the clipper ships bound from London, where it would be bought by the merchants who would blend it and package it. As international transportation and communication improved, the London auction became less important. Now tea manufacturers buy directly from growers world wide.