#british tea
International Biscuit Day 2019
It’s a KIT-Tea party!
All my favourite biscuits that I miss from back home :(
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Happy British Tea Day (April 21st)! Steep in this interesting bit of tea history and these tea titles from your James Smith Noel Collection!
It is difficult to believe that the United Kingdom have not always been the hosts of tea though it is now deeply woven into English culture and society. It was not until exploration and trade opened to the Far East (Asia) when the later Elizabethans began to hear tales of brewed cups of chai leaves in Japan and China through the East India Company in 1598. There is an urban legend of when tea first arrived in England. Lady Mary Douglas of London was given a dried bouquet by her lover , a member of the trading company , who had returned from China with the bouquet. Lady Mary dunked the collection of faded blossoms into a vase of water. Then during the night she awoke thirsty and drank the vase water. It is said that the bouquet’s blossoms were from a tea plant, however, there is no date that correlates with the urban legend.
The East India Company began to introduce tea to England and other parts of Europe in the mid-1600s. Tea was first offered for commercial sale to the public in 1657 at a coffee house in Exchange Alley in London. The first coffee house, introduced by the Greeks to the English around 1650, was opened in Oxford. Tea and coffee are common drinks for the English though the type of coffee being popularized among the English was the Turkish style of coffee, and also (hot) chocolate was being offered and popularized. It was in 1666 when the East India Company gifted 23 pounds of a “rare” type of tea to the king and also to the Russian tsar.
The use of “cupp of tee (tea)” was first noted by a clerk of British navy, Samuel Pepys on September 25, 1660, when he met with his colleagues. And his wife had her first cup of tea seven years later according to his personal writings on June 29th. And so the rise of tea drinking society began and the enjoyment of coffee began to fade out thanks to Charles II marriage to the Portuguese Princess Catherine in 1662. While tea-drinking was already a custom of the Portuguese royals and nobility, Princess Catherine’s dowry included rare teas such as Tangier and Bombay for court use. Tea began to become a regular import for commercial use in 1669 with the East India Company.
Americans are not unfamiliar with the history of unfair taxing of common goods. Let us remember the Boston Tea Party when crates of tea were tossed into the Boston Harbor as a reaction to taxes from the crown! Britain also taxed tea and chocolate in 1660 and the taxes on tea gradually increased until the 1720s when the import tax was lifted since tea was a common drink of the higher social class, until the 1730s.
It was until the 1730s that tea was a popular drink held at court and coffee houses in England. However, the common family was beginning to enjoy a cup of tea at their daily table. This tea was normally black tea which did not have any additional tax unlike the herbal counterpart of green tea. Another interesting closing fact is that tea joined the smuggling trade along with tobacco, silk, and brandy.
Woodward, N. H. “The English Discover Tea.” In Teas of the world. New York: Collier, 1980: pp. 48-70.
Here is a small selection of books about the United Kingdom, the Boston Tea Party, and Tea. In celebration of British Tea day check the J.S. Noel Collection for other musings about tea! (Tea set was loaned by one of our catalogers)
