Brief History
An old legend credits the
Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in the 28th century B.C. with the discovery of tea. As the story is told, the health conscious
emperor knew that boiling water before drinking seemed to protect people from
disease. He always insisted on having
his water boiled and that simple precaution led to a wonderful revelation. One day while touring the provinces, the
emperor stopped for a rest with his entourage. Servants gathered branches from a nearby
evergreen bush to build a fire for boiling the emperor’s water. A passing wind blew leaves from the bush into
the boiling pot and soon a delightful aroma issued forth. Intrigued, the emperor quickly sipped a bit of
the infusion. He immediately declared
that the refreshing brew must have medicinal qualities and ordered his servants
to gather leaves from the bush to take back to the palace.
News of the emperor’s discovery spread quickly
throughout the provinces. Soon everyone
in China was drinking tea and the infusion of that evergreen plant quickly
became an important part of the Chinese culture. Over the centuries, the knowledge and
appreciation of tea gradually spread to other parts of the Orient.
After hundreds of years,
tea arrived in England and by 1660 tea was flowing everywhere on the island. One Samuel Pepys, renowned 17th century
diarist, noted in 1660 that he had his very first “cup of tee of which I had
never drunk before.” In 1662, when
England’s King Charles II married Portugal’s Princess Catherine of Braganza,
part of her dowry was a chest of tea. It
was this queen’s love for tea and her influence on the royal court that influenced
the spread of the “new drink.” Tea
merchants were soon offering tea as an elixir for just about anything that
ailed anyone. It was first served in
public coffeehouses and in outdoor “tea gardens” then increasingly in homes.
Around 1650, Dutch ships
carrying the new drink to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam introduced it to
the American colonies. It took another
twenty years for the rest of the colonies to become acquainted with tea, though
no one really had any idea of how to use it properly. Americans would let the tea brew and stew for
hours, creating a dark bitter drink. They
also salted and ate the used leaves on buttered bread. It wasn’t until 1674, when the British took
over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York, that the custom of tea drinking as
we now know it began.
Tea was enjoyed in the American Colonies until
the late 18th century. But when King
George III decided to use tea as a source of revenue, and raised the import tax
on tea sent to the Colonies, the independent-minded Americans rebelled. In 1773 the colonists dressed as Native
Americans and dumped a shipload of tea into the Boston Harbor. This event became known as the Boston Tea
Party and was one of many that propelled the colonies toward independence and
probably indirectly led to a marked preference for coffee in the United States.
Around 1840, the custom of
afternoon tea began in England and is credited to one of Queen Victoria’s
ladies-in-waiting, Anna Maria Stanhope, known as the Duchess of Bedford. In England at the time, people ate a heavy
breakfast, a late dinner, and very little in between. Toward mid afternoon the Duchess routinely
experienced a “sinking feeling” which she remedied by dining in her boudoir
with tea, cakes, tarts, and biscuits. Others
soon followed the Duchess’ lead and in a few decades the custom of “taking tea”
in the afternoon became well established. At first the practice was limited to the upper
classes, but it eventually became so popular that tea shops and tearooms began
opening for the enjoyment of the general public. This elegant custom became greatly popularized
during the height of the Victorian Era making “teatime” a regular pastime of
the proper English Lady.
By the late 19th century, teatime had acquired
its’ own formal etiquette. Tea services
were made of silver or china. Fine
linens were used for tea cloths and serviettes (table napkins). Tea gowns were loose and flowing with matching
hats and gloves. The tea itself was
imported from India or Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), colonies of the British Empire.
With the tea came decorated platters of savories (dainty finger sandwiches),
scones with jams or homemade preserves and clotted cream, toast with cinnamon,
petits fours (small cakes cut from pound or sponge cakes and frosted), and
other delicacies that came to be known as “tea food.” In working class homes, afternoon tea became a
much heartier affair with cold meats, cheeses, and breads. This evening meal was called “high tea” and
often replaced dinner.
The United States can claim
two distinct contributions when it comes to tea, both dating from the 20th
century. In 1904, visitors to the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition in St. Louis sweltered in a heat wave and shunned the hot
brew offered by Indian tea growers. An
Englishman named Richard Blechynden, who represented the tea growers,
experimented with pouring the tea over ice in order to entice fair visitors. The result was a success. Iced tea now accounts for 80 percent of the
tea drunk in the United States. The
second contribution is the tea bag, the brainstorm of an American tea merchant
named Thomas Sullivan, who hit on the idea of providing samples to his
customers in small silk pouches or “a tea leaf holder.” Sullivan’s customers
soon discovered that the pouches could be put directly in teapots. Orders soon came pouring in for the tea
packaged in those little bags and Sullivan patented his brainstorm.
Nearly five thousand years have gone by since
Emperor Shen Nung sipped the first cup of tea on that Chinese roadside and
almost two centuries have elapsed since the Duchess of Bedford first thought of
tea and cakes to carry her through until dinnertime. So much time, yet some things do grow better
with age. Tea can be enjoyed today with
a sense of history and a sense of kinship with those who made significant
contributions to the development of this lovely pastime.
