Tea History
Legend has it that tea was discovered in China in 2737 BC by the Emperor Shen Nung, when the leaves of a wild tea bush accidentally fell into a pot of boiling water. By the time of the Tang Dynasty tea had become China’s national drink.
Tea was first brought to Portugal and Holland by missionaries and sailors returning from China. By the early 17th century, as China slowly opened up to trade with the outside world, regular cargoes of tea began to arrive in Europe and eventually Britain.
At first, only royalty could afford to drink tea, then the nobility acquired a taste for it. Servants were introduced to tea by drinking the ’dregs’ – using leaves left over from their masters’ brew.
Britain was one of the last European countries to be converted to tea drinking. The first record of tea trading with Chinese merchants is dated 1644. One of the first tea sellers in Britain was Thomas Garway, who sold it at his coffee house in Exchange Alley, London.
The British East India Company had a monopoly on tea trading from about 1600 to 1858, and did much to popularize the drink. In 1773 the Tea Act of the British Parliament tried to strengthen this monopoly – angry Americans responded by throwing tea shipments into the sea, in the famous ’Boston Tea Party’.
Tea became popular in refined British society during the reign of King Charles II, when his Portuguese wife, Catherine Braganza, introduced tea to the Court. Although Charles tried to suppress ’seditious’ meetings by banning the sale of tea, coffee, chocolate and sherbet from private houses, public outcry meant that he had to withdraw his proclamation after six days.
By the middle of the 18th century tea had become Britain’s most popular drink, much to the dismay of the Government, which profited from the sale of alcoholic drinks.
The quintessentially British custom of taking afternoon tea is believed to have started with Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, who invited friends for a light meal with tea and conversation around 5pm. Few Britons take high tea these days, but the tradition of a ’tea break’ from work, which started in the industrial revolution, has survived into the 21st century.
In the early 19th century tea was discovered growing wild in India and by the time of the opium wars in 1840 the first shipments of Assam tea were taking place, followed by teas from Darjeeling. Disease virtually wiped out the more dominant coffee production in Ceylon around 1890, so the country turned to tea production – within 20 years there were over 300,000 acres of tea bushes. As new sources of tea became available consumption in Britain fast increased.
Tea was first planted in Africa in 1687 but did not spread to East and Central Africa until the end of the 19th century. Today Africa is one of the world’s largest producers of tea.
When the American colonists settled on the Atlantic seaboard in the early 17th century, tea was an unknown beverage. By 1640, aristocrats in the Netherlands were sipping the drink, and tea consumption became popular with all Dutch people a few decades later. So, while there are no records to confirm, it is believed that tea was first brought to the colony of New Amsterdam (which later became New York) by the Dutch around the middle of the 17th century.
When New Amsterdam passed into English hands in 1674 and became New York, many English tea customs were adopted. One of these customs was the establishment of tea gardens. Two of the earliest were the Vauxhall (there would be two more by this name) and Ranelagh. Named for English counterparts, the gardens were "for breakfasting as well as the evening entertainment of ladies and gentlemen."
It is documented that William Penn, founder of the Quaker colony on the Delaware River in 1682, brought tea to this community, which later became – Philadelphia. Penn also brought coffee to the colony, which, like tea, was first thought to be a beverage for the well–to–do. But, as with other English colonies, coffee took a spot on the back burner while tea became the favorite, especially in the home.
Tea was enjoyed in Boston as early as 1670. It was first sold in Boston in 1690 by Benjamin Harris and Daniel Vernon, two dealers who obtained licenses to sell tea in accordance with English law. Of course, Boston is also the site of the famed Tea Party in 1773, when angry colonists took a stand on English–imparted tea taxes.
America is unique in its tea consumption habits, in that approximately 40 billion of the 50 billion cups consumed here each year are over ice.
Iced tea debuted in 1904 at the Louisiana State Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Mo. The temperature was soaring and the staff in the Far East Tea House couldn’t get any fair–goers to even look their way, let alone sample their tea. So they poured the hot tea over ice cubes and the drink quickly became the exposition’s most popular beverage.
The tea bag was born the same year as iced tea, and its arrival was equally serendipitous. A Boston tea merchant began sending samples of tea in small silk bags for customers to try. Eventually, the convenient pre–measured sacks came to dominate the American tea market.