Time for Tea

By Catherine Rose

Please mention The Villager and Town Life when responding to adverts 4 Tea has been enjoyed all over the world for more than a millennium but the English only adopted it as their own around four hundred years ago. Believed to have originated in Southern China, tea drinking dates back to around 3000 BC. However, it didn’t become popular in England until the 17th century, when it was made fashionable by King Charles II and his Portuguese wife Catherine de Braganza, who brought it over to the Royal court from her native country. Coffee houses had recently been established in London and were popular haunts of middle class gentlemen who went there to relax or conduct business. The custom of tea drinking was quickly introduced. Samuel Pepys referred to it in his diary of 1660: ‘…I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before’. Tea would be brewed in the coffee houses early in the morning and kept in barrels. Cups of it would then be re-heated and served over the course of the day. The coffee houses also sold loose leaf tea so that women, who did not frequent them, could enjoy it at home. It soon became popular for wives to host tea parties with their friends where tea was brewed and drunk black, often with sugar or honey added. Tea was very much the privilege of the wealthy. It was expensive to import and seen as a valuable commodity. It would be kept locked inside ornate caddies. Matching teapots, cups and saucers were prized possessions to be flaunted and cherished and there were many different designs manufactured in bone china during this time. The London Tea Auction was a hub of international tea trade. It was set up in 1706 and continued until as late as 1998 (with a break during the Second World War). Because tea was so expensive, the tea smuggling trade flourished and it wasn’t uncommon for tea leaves to be adulterated with all sorts of unpleasant

Please mention The Villager and Town Life when responding to adverts 6 (even poisonous) substances. The addition of milk therefore became increasingly popular as it would help to improve the taste of a poor-quality tea. In 1785, following pressure from tea merchants who were suffering due to the high incidence of tea smuggling, the government, led by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, slashed the high import tax on tea, making it much more affordable to the masses. Thus, tea drinking grew in popularity amongst all classes, and it became common for servants to be allocated a tea allowance. Not everyone was happy about tea-drinking no longer being confined to the middle and upper classes. Following a long debate about whether tea was bad for the health of the working classes, causing ‘idleness’ and ‘melancholy’ amongst other things, it was eventually championed by philanthropists as part of the temperance movement, as alcohol was viewed as the far greater evil and working class people were then encouraged to become ‘teetotal’. The concept of afternoon tea is a peculiarly English tradition that conjures up images of bone china cake stands, cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and warm scones with jam and cream, but tea served with food was only introduced in the mid-19th century. It is said to have been first conceived in approximately 1840 by Anna Russell, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in order to bridge the gap between lunch and dinner, which in those days was traditionally served quite late in the evening. The sandwich had been invented by John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, around a century earlier and the Duchess decided that tea served with a tray of sandwiches and some cake would do the job nicely. Soon friends were joining her for ‘afternoon tea’ at her home in Woburn Abbey and, thanks to her frequent trips to London, the custom grew to become a fashionable social event amongst the upper classes, with the addition of pastries and scones making it quite a substantial meal. During the Victorian era, a wider selection of tea began to be imported from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and India. Tea rooms serving afternoon tea grew in popularity, especially among women, as they were one of the few places where a woman could go without a chaperone. By the early 20th century, many establishments had expanded on the custom of having a musician playing in the background and were holding tea dances in the afternoons. Today, tea has become an integral part of our daily routine and could be described as Britain’s national drink. Although invented in America in the early 20th century, the tea bag didn’t become popular in England until the 1970s, when it revolutionised our tea drinking habits and put fortune tellers who read tea leaves at the bottom of a cup into decline! Still considered a rather genteel English custom, sumptuous afternoon teas are served by many top hotels, including London’s Claridges, the Dorchester, the Ritz and the Savoy, as well as Harrods and Fortnum & Mason. With a bewildering number of different tea blends on offer along with a ‘tea sommelier’ to help you choose, they are often booked up months ahead - a testament to tea’s enduring popularity.