The History of Tea
The British have been drinking tea for more then three hundred and fifty years, but tea has been consumed in other countries for over four thousand years.
Below is a detailed history of the origins of tea and how it has become the world’s favourite drink!
The influence of China:
The history of tea can be tracked back to ancient China over five thousand years ago. Where according to legend, the far sighted Emperor Shen Nung who was known creative scientist, herbalist and patron of the arts, decreed that all drinking water be boiled as a hygienic precaution. Then according to legend Emperor Shen Nung was sting below a tree drinking boiled water when dried leaves fell into his cup, the tree was a wild tea tree. The Emperor decided to try brew and according to legend tea was created.
Tea consumption spread thought-out Chinese culture reaching into every aspect of the society. Around 800 AD Zen Buddhist Lu Yu wrote the first definitive book on tea the Ch’a Ching. In the Ch’a Ching Lu Yu recorded the various methods to cultivate tea and also the preparation of Tea in Ancient China. Lu Yu become famed for the Ch’a Ching and was patronized by the Emperor of China, Ch’a Ching would become the vessel which would allow the consumption, cultivation and production of tea to spread world wide.
The influence of Japan:
Tea was first brought to isolated land of Japan by a returning Buddhist priest Yeisei. Yeisei had seen the value of tea in China in enhancing religious meditation and as a result he is known as the “Father of Tea” in Japan. Because a Buddhist introduced Tea to Japan, Tea became associated with the Zen Buddhism on the island. Tea received quickly received imperial sponsorship, resulting in its rapid spread from the royal court and monasteries to all facets of Japanese culture and society.
Soon tea was elevated to an art form with the creation of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, Cha-no-yu or the hot water for tea. The tea ceremony requires year of training yet the ceremony involves no more then serving a cup of tea. The Japanese Tea Ceremony soon spawned supporting arts and services. A stylised form of architecture, chaseki, was developed for tea houses. The famous Geishi, the cultural artistic hostess of Japan became to specialize in the presentation of the Cha-no-yu.
As more people become involved in Tea Ceremonies, they started to become corrupt. They moved from a simple act of performing the most perfect, most polite, most graceful, most charming preparation and tea as possible. This simple elegance was replaced a highly embellished and boisterous display. This corruption resulted in Tea Tournaments held among wealthy nobles who completed among either other for rich prizes. The rewarding of silk, armour, weapons, and jewellery was the complete corruption of the original Zen Buddhist ideal.
From the early 15th century Zen priests fought to restore the original ideals behind the Cha-no-yu. The mid 16th century priest Sen-no- Rikkyu set rigid standards for the ceremony which are still largely used and intact today.
Tea comes to Europe:
The first mention of tea outside of China and Japan is said to be by the Arabs in 850. They are reputed to have brought tea to Europe in 1559 by trading with Venetians. However, both the Portuguese and the Dutch claim to have introduced tea and tea drinking to Europe.
Famed Portuguese explorers opened up sea routes to China by as early as 1515. Jesuit priests traveling on subsequent Protguese trade missions brought the tea drinking habit back to Portugal, while the sailors manning the ships encouraged the Dutch merchants to enter into the trade. Regular shipments of tea where arriving in France, Holland and Baltic coast by 1610. England entered into the tea trade with the founding of East India Company in the late 17th century.
In the 16th century the Dutch where both a naval and mercantile power in the world, Dutch naval forces where particularly successful in the Pacific ocean. Because of this tea became very fashionable in the Hague, the Dutch capital. However, due ot the high cost of tea, over $100 per pound, tea become associated with wealth and power early on.
Slowly the amount of tea imported increased and the price fell as the volume of sale increased. By 1675 it was available in common food shops throughout Holland. As the consumption of tea increased there started to be debate in Dutch society among doctors and other authorities as to the negative or positive effects of tea on health. This debate on the health effects of tea was largely ignored by the public and France and Holland led Europe in the use of tea.
In the late 17th as the craze of things from the orient, Europe society clamoured for anything from the middle kingdom and Japan. This naturally lead to tea craze in all of Europe with Tea becoming a common drink served in Taverns. Tea would remain a dominate drink in most Europe and still retains is association with wealth, high society and civilization. Tea remained popular in France until the early 18th century, it was replaced by a preference for wine, chocolate and exotic coffee.
Tea comes to America
By 1650 the Dutch had the world largest merchant fleet and not surprisingly they become a major player in the tea trade. Peter Stuyvesant brought the first tea to America’s to Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, later renamed New York after its capture by the English. Tea become immensely popular in new Amsterdam and become the dominant beverage in the colony. So much so that after the English captured the colony in 1664 it was found the settlement consumed more tea per year then all of England.
Tea comes to England
It would come as a surprise to many to find that Tea was popular in European colonies in the America’s before it become common in England, the country which perhaps after China has become associated with tea. England was the last of the great naval nations to enter into the Chinese and East Indian trade routes. This is due to the unsteady ascension of the Stuarts and the Cromwellian Civil war. The first samples did not reach English shores until between 1652 – 1654. However, tea quickly become popular enough to ale as the national drink in England.
As with Holland it was the nobility which helped to ensure the acceptance of popularity of tea. Charles II was married while in exile to Catherine de Braganza of Portugal and had himself grown up in the Dutch capital. As a result both he and his bride where both confirmed tea drinkers, Thus when the Monarchy was re-established following the Cromwellian Civil wars they brought this foreign tea tradition back with them.
Also as part of her dowry Catherine de Braganza brought the territories of Tangier and Bombay. These two territories would give the struggling John Company also known as a base of operations.
The John Company was founded in the early 17th century by queen Elizabeth I for the purpose of promoting Asian trade. The company was granted extreme monopoly powers of all trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of Cape Horn. It powers where unpresidented and without limit it had the power to acquire land and govern it, coin money, Raise arms and build forts, form alliances, declare war, conclude peace, pass and enforce laws in its territories.
The John company was the largest and most powerful monopoly to ever exist in the world. And its power was based on the importation of tea. The competing English East India company founded during the same time period was merged with the John Company by royal order in 1773. There re-drafted charters gave the new East India Compnay complete and total trade monopoly on all commerce in China and India. As a result they where able to keep the price of tea artificially high, which would result in disasters for the British crown, in later years
Russian Tea Tradition:
Russia was another country which was late to exposed to tea as its popularity swept around the world. Russia’s interest in tea began in the 17th century when Czar Alexis was presented with several chests of tea from Chinese ambassadors. In 1689 the Trade Treaty of Newchinsk established a common border between Imperial Russia and China; this allowed trade caravans to crisscross the frontier between the two nations. However, it still took 16 months to move good from China Moscow, a trip covering over eleven thousand miles. This resulted in the cost of tea being prohibitive and only the wealthy and aristocracy could afford it, like most other nations when they where exposed to tea for the first time.
By 1796 with the death Empress Catherine the Great the price of tea had decreased and was spreading through out Russia Society. Tea was ideally suited to Russian life: hearty, warm and sustaining and it shares the status as the national drink of Russia beside Vodka.
Tea laws:
As tea became increasingly popular the British Government and Monarchy took action. In 1675, King Charles II of England forbade the sale of tea, coffee, chocolate and sherbet 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.
smuggling tea:
By the middle of the 18th Century, the tax on tea had reached a staggering 119% - much higher than most British taxes today. Naturally enough, this 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. 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. 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. Adulteration saw new pure tea mixed with old tea leaves, recycled tea leave and other substances, including dung.
Despite numerous attempts by the government to crack down on tea smuggling it remained profitable and very common until 1784. In this year the government of William Pitt slashed the tax on tea from 119% to 12.5%. However, the practice of adulateration still remained profitable and would continue to be common pratice until 1875 when the English Food and Drug act where passed which imposed heavy fines and imprisonment for committing the act.
Tea and the American Revolution:
England had recently completed the French and Indian War, fought, from England's point of view, to free the colony from French influence and stabilize trade. It was the feeling of Parliament that as a result, it was not unreasonable that the colonists shoulder the majority of the cost. Thus the British government imposed a number of new taxes to help pay for the war and also the continual garrison of British troops and naval ships in the thirteen colonies. They imposed higher tax on Newspapers, Tavern Licenses, legal documents, marriage licences and docking papers. The colonists rebelled against what they saw as arbitrary taxation without representation. In response Parliament imposed even heavier taxes including in June 1767 a tax on tea.
In response to these news taxes the American colonists started to openly purchase imported Dutch tea. Which was circumventing the East India Companies monopoly of all tea sales to England and to her colonies. The financially troubled John Company granted permission to sell directly to colonist, by-passing colonial merchant, resulting in a profit windfall. The East India Company was counting on the passion of American Women for tea to result in the Dutch getting cut out of the tea market, British warships where also employed to reduce Dutch tea entering the colonies. This was a major calculation as American Women and the population as a whole boycotted British Tea. Thus tea became a major rallying call and a symbol of non-representative and a repressive government abroad and would lead to revolution and the creation of new nation.
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 Native American Indians, boarded ships owned by the British East India Company. Once aboard, they smashed open the tea cargoes from wooden chests and threw them into the sea. 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. In retaliation, the port of Boston was closed and the city occupied by royal troops. The colonial leaders met and revolution was declared, starting the American Revolution also known as the War of Insurrection.
The Opium Wars:
Vast sums of money were spent on tea. To take such large amounts of money physically out of England would have financially collapsed the country and been impossible to transport safely half way around the world. With plantations in newly occupied India, the East India Company a solution. In India they could grow the inexpensive crop of opium and use it as a means of exchange.
Chinese Emperors tried to prevent the sale of opium to the Chinese population. As a result England went to war with China in order to preserve their right to free trade, there right to sell opium. By 1842 England was able to force the China to capitulate and allow them to sell opium in China undisturbed until 1908.
Tea in the 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 minimize 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 tones a year.
Tea Inventions in America: Iced Tea and Teabags
In 1904 the United States hosted the World’s Far in St. Louis. Trade exhibitors from around the world brought their products to America's first World's Fair. One such merchant was Richard Blechynden, a tea plantation owner. Originally, he had planned to give away free samples of hot tea to fair visitors. But when a heat wave hit, no one was interested. To save his investment of time and travel, he dumped a load of ice into the brewed tea and served the first "iced tea".
Four years later, Thomas Sullivan of New York developed the concept of "bagged tea". As a tea merchant, he carefully wrapped each sample delivered to restaurants for their consideration. He recognized a natural marketing opportunity when he realized the restaurants were brewing the samples "in the bags" to avoid the mess of tea leaves in the kitchens.
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