Heritage

Why drinking tea was not for the poor folk

tea

A woman drinking green tea. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Any time is tea time:

Said C. S. Lewis: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

The habit of drinking tea is today considered to be quintessentially British. Popularised by the British in the 17th and 18th centuries at home, the tea plant itself has a history, which goes back much farther.

According to legend, in 2737 BC, Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled some drinking water, when some leaves from the tree blew into the water and gave it a flavour which the Emperor liked.

Shen Nung was also a renowned herbalist and upon further experimentation found the leaves to have medicinal properties. He urged the Chinese people to cultivate the plant for the benefit of the entire nation.

In the early days, tea leaves were boiled in water to produce a rather bitter brew, which was used primarily for medicinal purposes and only secondly as a pleasurable beverage.

It took over 3,000 years for tea to become a popular drink among the Chinese.

During the Tang Dynasty (600-900 AD), the popularity of tea was recognised with the imposition of a tax. It was also during this period that tea was introduced to Japan by Buddhist monks who had travelled to China for studies.

In the course of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), steamed and dried tea leaves became popular; however, this type of green tea did not keep or travel well outside of China. In today’s parlance, we would say it had a short shelf life.

The Chinese started to roast the tea leaves to prevent them from rotting. The leaves were then left in the air to oxidise, producing black tea. This tea was produced mainly for export and the Chinese, even today, continue to drink green tea.

At that stage in history, Europe was lagging behind and it was not until the later half of the 16th century that there are brief mentions of tea mostly from Portuguese who were living in the East as traders and missionaries.

Nevertheless, it was not the Portuguese but the Dutch who were the first to ship tea as a commercial import.

The Dutch had by this time started to encroach on Portuguese strongholds and trading routes in the East and established a trading post on the island of Java from where the first consignment of tea from China was shipped to Holland in 1606.

Tea soon became a fashionable drink in Holland and from there spread to the rest of Europe, but because of its high price, it remained a preserve of the wealthy.

From 1600, the British East India Company had a monopoly on importing goods from outside of Europe and it is thought that sailors plying the seas brought tea home as gifts. But it was the marriage of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza on May 21, 1662, that would popularise tea drinking in Britain.

Catherine was a Portuguese Princess who was addicted to tea drinking and the first thing she asked for upon landing in Portsmouth was a “cuppa” tea. Her love of the drink established tea as a fashionable refreshment first at court and then among the wealthy classes. Capitalising on this, the East India Company began to import tea into Britain, the first order being in 1664 for 100 tonnes from Java.

Coffee arrived in Britain a few years before tea and it was in the established coffee houses that the new drink spread to the people. In 1657, Thomas Garway, an English proprietor, had the idea of offering tea to the public and it quickly became the drink of choice, far outpacing wines and liquors.

Unfortunately, this had the undesirable effect of losing the government tax revenue on sales related to liquor on account of reduced consumption. The government remedied the situation by imposing high taxes on tea, a move which would later in history prove to be disastrous.

Nonetheless, it was not until early in the 1700s that tea would become a popular drink among the upper and middle classes in Britain. Tea was taken in the pleasure gardens of London by royalty, aristocrats and ordinary working people.

By 1772, the tax on tea was causing a problem in Britain’s colonies in America. While most other taxes on imported goods to America had been repealed, the tax on tea remained firm in order to keep the bankrupt East India Company afloat.

The Sons of Liberty attempted to block shipments of tea from arriving in Philadelphia and New York. On December 16, 1773, they allowed two ships into the Boston Harbor.

Disguised as Native American Indians, The Sons of Liberty emptied 342 large chests f tea into the harbor in what later came to be known as the Boston Tea Party. These actions by the colonists led the British Parliament to pass a series of laws known as the “Intolerable Acts” which severely limited the political freedoms of the citizens and ultimately led to the American Revolutionary War in 1775. It can, therefore, be said that tea provided a platform for the American independence movement.

The high tax on tea was also encouraging smuggling and it is claimed that by the late 18th century, more smuggled tea entered Britain than through legal channels. By 1784, the British government admitted that the tax was doing more harm than good and it was reduced from 119 to 12.5 per cent.

In the 19th century, tea growing spread to Formosa and indigenous tea was discovered in the northeastern Indian state of Assam where large plantations were established. In 1839, the first Indian tea was sold in London.

The 20th century saw the large-scale growing of tea in Africa, notably Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania. Today, Kenya is the fourth largest producer of tea worldwide.

The most widely consumed beverage in the world has both a historical and cultural importance as well as a close link with colonialism.