Tea in the United Kingdom
Since the 17th century the United Kingdom has been one of the world's largest consumers of tea, with an average annual per capita supply of. Originally an upper-class drink in Europe, tea gradually spread through all classes, eventually becoming common. It is still considered an important part of the British identity and is a prominent feature of British culture and society.
In Northern Ireland and in the rest of the United Kingdom tea drinking blends and preferences vary. Although typically served with milk, it is also common to drink certain varieties black or with lemon. Sugar is a popular addition to any variety. Everyday tea, such as English breakfast tea, served in a mug with milk and sugar is a popular combination. Sandwiches, crumpets, scones, cake, or biscuits often accompany tea, which gave rise to the prominent British custom of dunking a biscuit into tea.
History
The rise in popularity of tea between the 17th and 19th centuries had major social, political, and economic implications for the Kingdom of Great Britain. Tea defined respectability and domestic rituals, supported the rise of the British Empire, and contributed to the rise of the Industrial Revolution by supplying both the capital for factories and calories for labourers. It also demonstrated the power of globalisation and its ability to transform a country and reshape its society.Historiography
William H. Ukers argues in All About Tea: Volume I that tea gained popularity in Great Britain due to its reputation as a medicinal drink and its burgeoning presence in coffeehouses where elite men congregated. As for the popularity of tea among women, he briefly acknowledges that Princess Catherine of Braganza, the future queen consort of England, made tea fashionable amongst aristocratic women, but largely attributes its popularity to its ubiquity in the medical discourse of the 17th century. In Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf that Conquered the World the authors Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton and Matthew Mauger trace tea's popularity back to three distinct groups: virtuosi, merchants, and elite female aristocrats. They argue that the influence of these three groups combined launched tea as a popular beverage in Britain.Woodruff D. Smith in his article "Complications of the Commonplace: Tea, Sugar, and Imperialism" differs from the beliefs of the previous writers. He argues that tea only became popular once sugar was added to the drink and that the combination became associated with a domestic ritual that indicated respectability. Sidney W. Mintz in both "The Changing Roles of Food in the Story of Consumption" and Sweetness and Power agrees to an extent with Smith, acknowledging that sugar played a monumental role in the rise of tea, but he contradicts Smith's connection of tea to respectability. While Smith argues that tea first became popular in the home, Mintz claims that tea was drunk during the workday for its warm sweetness and stimulating properties, elaborating that it was later that tea entered the home and became an "integral part of the social fabric".
17th century and earlier
Early mentions
The history of European interactions with tea dates back to the mid-16th century. The earliest mention of tea in Western literature was by Giambattista Ramusio, a Venetian explorer, as Chai Catai, or "Tea of China", in 1559. Tea was mentioned several more times in various European countries afterwards, but Jan Hugo van Linschooten, a Dutch navigator, was the first to write a printed reference of tea in English in 1598 in his Voyages and Travels.However, it was several years later, in 1615, that the earliest known reference to tea by an Englishman took place. In a letter, Mr. R. Wickham, an agent for the East India Company stationed at Japan, asked a Mr. Eaton, who was stationed in then-Portuguese Macao, China, to send him "a pot of the best sort of chaw", phonetically an approximation of, the local Cantonese dialect word for tea. Another early reference to tea appears in the writings of the cleric Samuel Purchas in 1625. Purchas described how the Chinese consumed tea as "the powder of a certaine herbe called chia of which they put as much as a walnut shell may contain, into a dish of Porcelane, and drink it with hot water". In 1637 Peter Mundy, a British traveller and merchant who came across tea in Fujian, China, wrote, "chaa – only water with a kind of herb boyled in it".
Sale of tea begins
Though there were a number of early mentions, it was several more years before tea was actually sold in England. Green tea exported from China was first introduced in the coffeehouses of London shortly before the 1660 Stuart Restoration.Thomas Garway, a tobacconist and coffeehouse-owner, was the first person in England to sell tea as a leaf and beverage at his London coffeehouse in Exchange Alley in 1657. He had to explain the new beverage in a pamphlet. The Sultaness Head Coffee House began selling tea as a beverage and posted the first newspaper advertisement for tea in Mercurius Politicus on 30 September 1658. The announcement proclaimed, "That Excellent, and by all Physicians approved, China drink, called by the Chinese, Tcha, by other nations Tay alias Tee,...sold at the Sultaness-head, ye Cophee-house in Sweetings-Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London".
In London "offee, chocolate and a kind of drink called tee" were "sold in almost every street in 1659", according to Thomas Rugge's Diurnall. However, tea was still mainly consumed by upper and mercantile classes. The writer and politician Samuel Pepys, curious for every novelty, tasted the new drink on 25 September 1660 and recorded the experience in his diary, writing, "I did send for a cup of tee, of which I had never had drunk before".
The East India Company made its first order for the importation of tea in 1667 to their agent in Bantam, who then sent two canisters of tea weighing in 1669. In 1672 a servant of Edward Herbert, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury in London sent his instructions for tea-making, and warming the delicate cups, to Shropshire:
The directions for the tea are: a quart of spring water just boiled, to which put a spoonful of tea, and sweeten to the palate with candy sugar. As soon as the tea and sugar are in, the steam must be kept in as much as may be, and let it lie half or quarter of an hour in the heat of the fire but not boil. The little cups must be held over the steam before the liquid be put in.
The earliest English equipages for making tea date to the 1660s. Small porcelain tea bowls were used by the fashionable and were occasionally shipped with the tea itself.
Tea as a medicinal drink
The first factor that contributed to the rise in popularity of tea was its reputation as a medicinal drink. Tea first became labelled as a medical drink in 1641 by the Dutch physician and director of the Dutch East India Company Nikolas Dirx, who wrote under the pseudonym Nicolaes Tulp; in his book Observationes Medicae, he claimed that "nothing is comparable to this plant" and that those who use it are "exempt from all maladies and reach an extreme old age". Dirx went into considerable detail on the specific merits of tea, such as curing "headaches, colds, ophthalmia, catarrh, asthma, sluggishness of the stomach, and intestinal troubles". A shopkeeper named Thomas Garway praised the medical benefits of tea in a broadsheet published in 1660 titled, "An Exact Description of the Growth, Quality, and Vertues of the Leaf TEA". Garway claims that "the Drink is declared to be most wholesome, preserving in perfect health until extreme Old Age", as well as "maketh the body active and lusty", "helpeth the Headache", "taketh away the difficulty of breathing", "strengtheneth the Memory", and "expelleth infection".There were many more published works on the health benefits of tea, including those by the polymath Samuel Hartlib in 1657, the physician Cornelis Bontekoe in 1678, the merchant and politician Thomas Povey in 1686 and the merchant and writer Thomas Tryon in the 1690s; one satirist of the time asked whether the Royal College of Physicians could debate whether any of the exotic new hot drinks would "agree with the Constitutions of our English bodies". In 1667 Pepys noted that his wife was taking tea on medical advice – "a drink which Mr Pelling the Pottecary tells her is good for her colds and defluxions". The English philosopher John Locke developed a fondness for tea after spending time with Dutch medical men in the 1680s. These men are the "virtuosi" referred to by Ellis, Coulton and Mauger: scientists, philosophers, and doctors who first took an interest in tea and contributed to its early popularity as a pharmaceutical. However, as with Dirx, some of these men may have been influenced by the Indies trading companies and merchants who wished to create a market for tea. Nevertheless, these writings about the perceived health benefits of tea contributed to the rise of the drink's popularity in England.
A study in 2022 found that rising tea-consumption during the 18th century in England had the unintended effect of reducing mortality rates, as it led more people to boil their water, thus reducing their vulnerability to waterborne diseases.
Popularity among aristocrats
According to Ellis, Coulton and Mauger, "tea was six to ten times more expensive than coffee" in the 1660s, making it a costly and luxurious commodity. The proliferation of works on the health benefits of tea came at a time when people in the upper classes of English society began to take an interest in their health, further bolstering its popularity.In 1660, and of tea bought from Portugal were formally presented to Charles II of England by the East India Company. The drink, already common in Europe, was a favourite of his new Portuguese bride, Catherine of Braganza. She introduced it at Domus Dei in Portsmouth during her wedding to Charles II in 1662 and made it fashionable among the ladies of the court as her temperance drink of choice. Catherine of Braganza's use of tea as a court beverage rather than a medicinal drink influenced its popularity in literary circles around 1685. Whenever it was consumed in the court, it was "conspicuously on display" so as to show it off.
Accordingly, tea drinking became a central aspect of aristocratic society in England by the 1680s, particularly among women who drank it while visiting in the home. Catherine of Braganza's tea-drinking habit made tea an acceptable drink for both gentlemen and ladies. Wealthy ladies' desire to show off their luxurious commodities in front of other ladies also increased demand for tea and made it more popular. The addition of sugar was yet another factor that made tea desirable among the elite crowd, as it was another luxurious commodity already well-established among the upper classes.