Sunday, 2 March 2014

A social history of Tea

A cup of tea is a vital part of everyday life for the majority of people in modern Britain - in fact tea is so integral to our routine, that it is difficult to imagine life without it! But it was not always so; tea was once a luxury product that only the rich could afford, and at one time there was even a debate about whether it might be bad for the health. It was over the course of several hundred years that tea gained its place as our national drink, and only relatively recently that its health-giving properties have been recognised.
Tea first became established in Britain because of the influence of a foreign princess, Catherine of Braganza, the queen of Charles II. A lover of tea since her childhood in Portugal, she brought tea-drinking to the English royal court, and set a trend for the beverage among the aristocracy of England in the seventeenth century.

The fashion soon spread beyond these elite circles to the middle classes, and it became a popular drink at the London coffee houses where wealthy men met to do business and discuss the events of the day. But the tea that was being drunk in those seventeenth century coffee houses would probably be considered undrinkable now. Between 1660 and 1689, tea sold in coffee houses was taxed in liquid form. The whole of the day's tea would be brewed in the morning, taxed by a visiting excise officer, and then kept in barrels and reheated as necessary throughout the rest of the day. So a visitor to the coffee house in the late afternoon would be drinking tea that had been made hours before in the early morning! The quality of the drink improved after 1689, when the system of taxation was altered so that tea was taxed by the leaf rather than by the liquid.

Some coffee houses also sold tea inloose leaf form so that it could be brewed at home. This meant that it could be enjoyed by women, who did not frequent coffee houses. Since it was relatively expensive, tea-drinking in the home must have been largely confined to wealthier households, where women would gather for tea parties. Such a party would be a genteel social occasion, using delicate china pots and cups, silver tea kettles and elegantly carved tea jars and tea tables. All the equipment would be set up by the servants, and then the tea would be brewed by the hostess (aided by a servant on hand to bring hot water) and served by her to her guests in dainty cups. Both green and black teas were popular, and sugar was frequently added (though like tea, this was an expensive import); in the seventeenth century though, it was still unusual for milk to be added to the beverage. We can imagine then that while seventeenth century men were at the coffee houses drinking tea and exchanging gossip, their wives gathered at one another's homes to do exactly the same thing - just in a more refined atmosphere!

Fluctuations in the level of tax meant fluctuations in the price of tea, and during the seventeenth century frequent tea-drinking was beyond the means of the majority of British people.But despite its high price, the British took to tea drinking with enormous enthusiasm.
In the eighteenth century there was a clear gap between the large number of people who wanted to enjoy tea regularly, and the relatively small number of people who could actually afford to do so. And into this gap stepped the smugglers. If tea was smuggled in, no duty was paid on it, so it could be sold much more cheaply. Highly-organised smuggling networks were developed to cater for the popular demand for tea. Though these gangs of smugglers could frequently be ruthless in their practices, such was the popularity of tea-drinking that many people were prepared to turn a blind eye. By the later eighteenth century, it is estimated that more tea was smuggled into Britain than was brought in legally. This had two important effects for tea drinking: firstly, because it made tea affordable, it made the beverage ever more popular among all sections of society, and ever more integral to everyday life. Secondly, because the smugglers were based in coastal areas and their networks spread across the countryside, it drove the enthusiasm for tea drinking out of the larger towns and cities and into rural areas.

By 1785 the government (under pressure from legal tea merchants whose profits were being seriously undermined by all the smuggling) slashed the duty on tea, making it much more affordable. This wiped out the illegal smuggling trade virtually overnight. It still was not cheap, and for many years tea was often adulterated with leaves from other plants or with leaves that had already been brewed, which made it more affordable but much less pleasant! There was a great deal of concern about adulteration - some unscrupulous individuals added poisonous chemicals to make green 'tea' the right colour - and these concerns led to an increase in popularity in black tea, and a parallel increase in the addition of milk to tea. Such was the popularity of the beverage that many employers provided free tea to their employees (just like tea breaks in offices and factories today!) while household servants were often provided with a tea allowance. Although it is not documented, these employers were surely well aware that a cup of tea was just the thing to refresh their employees and perk them up.

But not everyone agreed that tea was an approriate drink for the working classes. Indeed, from the early eighteenth century well into the nineteenth century a debate raged among middle and upper-class commentators about the benefits or otherwise of tea drinking - and particularly about whether the lower classes should be allowed to drink tea at all. This was partly based upon a consideration of whether tea might be injurious to health (it was a long time before the benefits of tea to health would be scientifically proven) but also partly based upon snobbery and a belief that the poor existed essentially to serve the needs of the rich.
In 1706 a book by a doctor from Montpelier, France, was translated into English. Its title:Wholesome Advice against the Abuse of Hot Liquors'. Its particular targets were tea, coffee and hot chocolate. In the late seventeenth century, great medicinal claims had been made for hot drinks, including tea, and this book was a response to them, arguing that though while moderate consumption could be beneficial, an excess of hot drinks caused the blood and insides to heat up and that 'Excess of Heat is the most Common Cause of Sickness and Death'. Indeed, noted the doctor, 'The name of Phlegeton, one of the rivers of Hell, coming from a word that signifies to Burn, denotes, That the Abuse of Hot Liquors contributes very much to People the Kingdom of Death'. Medical science at the time was so basic that the 'evidence' presented in the book was based largely upon vague anatomical knowledge and references to Bible stories and classical Greek and Roman texts. It is noted, for example, that Methuselah, the Old Testament figure who lived almost a thousand years, never drank hot liquors.
This book though counselled moderation rather than abstinence (and noted indeed that an excess of cold is equally as damaging as an excess of heat). 
But a few decades later in 1748 John Wesley, the great preacher and founder of the Methodist movement, was arguing for complete absitinence from tea, on the grounds that it gave rise to 'numberless disorders, particularly those of a nervous kind'. He cited the example of himself, claiming that tea drinking had caused in him a 'Paralytick disorder', which had cleared up since he began to abstain from the beverage. Wesley urged that the money previously spent by an individual on tea should instead be given to the poor, and as an alternative hot infusions could be made from English herbs including sage or mint. His argument was certainly thorough (although medically entirely incorrect), and he even touched on how one ought to deal with the awkward situation of having to refuse an offered cup of tea. The tract is shot through with the emphasis on the religious importance of self-denial that was a central tenet of early Methodism, but in fact at later in his life Wesley went back to tea drinking.
In the following years the debate about the health-giving properties of tea got under way in earnest. An anonymous 'Gentleman of Cambridge' published a pamphlet claiming (based on the work of a physician who had served no less a figure than the King of Denmark!) that tea was virtually a cure-all. He cited conditions as varied as scurvy, rheumatism, inflammation and poor sight, all of which he said could be cured by the daily drinking of large quantities of tea. He also noted that it was particularly beneficial to the 'fair sex' (meaning women), which was a great contrast to the doctor of Montpelier, who was very concerned that hot liquors could heat the womb and adversely affect a woman's fertility (his evidence for the adverse effect of heat included the Biblical figure Rachel, who had rather a hot temper, and had to wait many years to conceive).
In 1757 the philanthropist Jonas Hanway published an essay on the effects of tea drinking, 'considered as pernicious to health, obstructing industry and impoverishing the nation'. Published in the form of 25 letters written to two wealthy female friends, Hanway dismissed the claim that tea could cure scurvy, and claimed instead, like Wesley, that it caused 'paralitic and nervous disorders'. He was particularly concerned about its effect on women: 'How many sweet creatures of your sex, languish with weak digestion, low spirits, lassitudes, melancholy, and... nervous complaints? Tell themto change their diet, and among other articles leave off drinking tea, it is more than probable the greatest part of them will be restored to health.' He also appealed to their vanity - insisting that due to women drinking tea 'there is not quite so much beauty in this land as there was'. But more than just injurious to women,Hanway believed that tea-drinking risked ruining the nation, because of its increasing prevalence among the working classes, and associated the drinking of tea with the drinking of gin. 
He argued that the poor could ill-afford to spend their money on tea, claiming that 'those will have tea who have not bread', and that children born to poor mothers were dying because their mothers were spending all their money on tea, and drinking this 'liquid fire' while breast-feeding. This, he claimed, had led to a decline in numbers in the workforce, which he believed was obstructing agriculture and manufacturing, and would leave the country open to attack because there would not be enough fit men for the army. Thus Hanway urged the rich to give up tea drinking, in the hope that their example would be followed by the poor, on whose labour Britain depended. Much of Hanway's essay is then based on the assumption that the injurious habits of the poor must be controlled, not for the sake of poor themselves, but because a decline in their numbers or would ultimately be damaging to the interests of the rich.
In 1758 an anonymous author entered the debate with a pamphlet entitled The Good and Bad Effects of Tea Consider'd, which very much supported Hanway's arguments. The pamphlet argued that while tea-drinking was acceptable for the middle and upper-classes, it should be prevented among 'persons of an inferior rank and mean abilities'. Although his argument started reasonably, pointing out that a cup of tea alone was an inadequate breakfast for those who had to do hard work, it soon descended into a tirade based, like Hanway's original essay, on the belief that the social habits of the poor must be controlled for the sake of the rich. He claimed that the practice of tea-drinking in the afternoon among working class women meant that they were 'neglecting their spinning knitting etc spending what their husbands are labouring hard for, their children are in rags, gnawing a brown crust, while these gossips are canvassing over the affairs of the whole town, making free with the good name and reputaion of their superiors.' He believed that it also encouraged these 'artful husseys' to drink spirits and to complain about their husbands, and urged innocent people to hold out against their malign influence. Unsurprisingly, this author was set against the practice of providing servants with an allowance for tea.
But not everybody followed Hanway's argument. The eminent intellectual Dr Samuel Johnson, a devotee of tea, so disagreed with Hanway's 1757 essay that he published a hilariously satirical review of it in the Literary Magazine, a monthly journal. 

Johnson started of by admitting that Hanway should expect little justice, since Johnson himself was 'a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant, whose kettle scarcely has time to cool, who with Tea amuses the evening, with Tea solaces the midnights, and with Tea welcomes the morning'. He then poured scorn on Hanway's suggestion that women are less beautiful than they once were, before considering the claim that tea-drinking has led to an increase in nervous disorders. Johnson suggested that rather than blaming tea, one ought to blame the 'general langour [that] is theeffect of general luxury, of general idleness', because those who are idle get no exercise, and are thus susceptible to nervous disorders. He argued that there is only a link with tea-drinking because tea-drinking is common among those who are already 'idle and luxurious'. Johnson was also perceptive enough to note that often tea-drinking was just an excuse for bringing people together: 'a pretence for assembling to prattle, for interrupting business' - but unlike tea's critics, who saw such gatherings as dangerous (particularly among the working classes), Johnson saw no harm in it. Thus he has much in common with many modern tea-drinkers, who delight in getting together with a cuppa for a gossip and a giggle.
Jonas Hanway was as furious with Johnson's review as Johnson had been scathing about Hanway's original work. He wrote a response to Johnson's review in the Gazateer, and in turn Johnson was moved to respond to this, again in the Literary Magazine, the only occasion on which Johnson was ever moved to reply to an attacker.
Hanway would have been wise not to have taken up his pen again, for Johnson's reply to him was so witty and effective that it demolished once again Hanway's arguments. Thus ended the spat between Jonas Hanway and Dr Samuel Johnson, but the arguments about tea raged for years. As late as 1826, a London tea dealer (admittedly biased by his profession) published a book which included a defence of tea from the claim that it caused 'nervous disorders'. With some insight, he questioned the medical basis of these disorders, and suggested that they might be cured not by giving up tea, but by the sufferers taking up regular exercise, eating healthy food and getting plenty of sleep. He noted that tea 'quenches the most burning thirst, and cheers the spirits without heating the blood... I am inclined to believe that the man who could willingly forgo the pleasures of the tea-table and society around it, wants that kind of congenial spirit without which life would be a burden, and the world a dreary waste...'. In conclusion he pointed out the government provided tea to the Navy, without any concern that 'our future enemies will have to contend with bilious and nervous sailors, instead of hearts of oak, and sinews of iron'. The arguments are now over once and for all, since it has now been shown scientifically that drinking four cups of tea a day can be beneficial to health.
Given the insistence of some eighteenth-century authors of a link between tea-drinking and 'dram-drinking', it is somewhat ironic then that tea-drinking was actually being used as a weapon in the armoury of the temperance movement - a movement that was primarily an attempt by sections of the ruling classes to get the working classes to give up alcohol. Virtually since historical records began, alcoholic drinks had been a central part of the diet of men, women and even children in Britain. There was some sense in this: weak alcoholic drinks could quench the drinker's thirst without the risk of contracting disease from contaminated water. But the eighteenth century saw a rise in the popularity of strong wines such as port among the upper classes, and of spirits, particularly gin, among the working classes. 
In the nineteenth century there was the inevitable backlash, inspired primarily by upper class fears that gin-sodden working class would be difficult to control and unable to work. Thus a movement developed in support of temperance - the drinking of alcohol only in moderation, if at all. Tea was useful to thetemperance movement because it offered a refreshing, thirst-quenching alternative to alcohol that was cheap and (made of course from boiled water) safe to drink. Preachers of temperance urged people to sign a pledge to give up drinking alcohol, and millions did so (although merely signing the paper was no guarantee of a future of abstinence). Often this took place at mass meetings, and tea would be served to those who attended. The Methodist church was at the forefront of the temperance movement and often served tea at its meetings, rather ironically since its founder, John Wesley, had been so anti-tea.
During the 1830s the movement was so successful that businessmen recognised that there was a gap in the market for catering outlets that sold non-alcoholic refreshments - a temperance alternative to pubs and inns. A great many new cafes and coffee houses opened up. Though in principal similar to the coffee houses of the seventeenth century, they were different in that these new businesses catered to the needs of ordinary people, not just wealthy men. From the 1880s, tea rooms and tea shops became popular and fashionable, particularly among women, for whom they offered a most welcome and respectable environment in which to meet, chat and relax, without the need to be accompanied by a man.

Later in the nineteenth century then, going out to a tea shop became a popular pastime for women. But tea remained a beverage that was mostly drunk at home. Tea was drunk at breakfast by all social classes. Among the rich, it would typically accompany a vast spread of bread or toast, cold meats and pies, eggs and fish. Of course some families favoured a lighter breakfast, and lower down the social scale this was a necessity rather than an option. Poor families usually began the day with a cup of tea, as well as bread and butter, or perhaps porridge or gruel. Tea was then drunk at regular intervals throughout the day.
Tea features often in the work of the great nineteenth century author and social commentator Charles Dickens. His books make it clear that tea-drinking was ubiquitous among the working classes, and through the eyes of Pip, the hero of Great Expectations, we can sense Dickens' affection for it: '...we returned into the Castle, where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The responsibility of making toast was delegated to the Aged [an elderly man]... The Aged prepared such a haystack of buttered toast, that I could scarcely see him over it... while Miss Skiffins prepared such a jorum of tea, that the pig in the back premises became strongly excited... We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it.' On the other hand, in Oliver Twist, Dickens uses the precise tea-making ceremony of Mrs Corney, the matron of workhouse, to display her self-satisfaction, and she is wooed over a cup of tea by the tyrannical and grasping beadle, Mr Bumble, who, when she has she left the room, inspects her tea-making equipment to check that it is genuine silver.

While tea was part of the staple diet of the poor, among the rich tea-drinking was evolving into an elaborate social occasion. Afternoon teas probably had their roots in the ladies tea-parties of the seventeenth centuries, but evolved during the eighteenth century into something of a national institution. 
Tradition has it that afternoon tea was 'invented' by Anna Maria, the wife of the seventh Duke of Bedford, who in 1841 started drinking tea and having a bite to eat in the mid-afternoon, to tide her over during the long gap between lunch (eaten at about 1 o'clock) and dinner (eaten at around 7 o'clock). This swiftly developed into a social occasion, and soon the Duchess was inviting guests to join her for afternoon tea at 5 o'clock. It did not become instantly popular elsewhere though, partly because in fashionable circles dinner was eaten earlier, leaving less of a gap to be filled by afternoon tea. But by the 1860s the fashion for afternoon tea had become widespread. Such teas were elegant affairs, with tea drunk from the best china and small amounts of food presented perfectly on little china plates. On offer might be bread and butter, scones and cakes, and sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
Contemporary manuals on etiquette and good housekeeping are full of advice on how to conduct a correct afternoon tea. The idea of needing an instruction book in order to enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit with some friends seems rather alarming these days, but although nineteenth century afternoon teas were elaborate affairs from our point of view, in those days they were considered relatively informal occasions. Invitations were issued verbally or by note, and rather than attending for the entire duration guests were free to pop in when it suited them and likewise leave when they wanted to. The hostess would pour the tea, but it was the responsibility of the men to hand the cups round. If there were no men present, this job fell to the daughters of the hostess or other young women present (goodness know what happened if there were no men and no daughters available!). There was a fashion for women to wear tea gowns, but these were softer and less restrictive than evening gowns, and it was not always deemed necessary for women to wear gloves. Nonetheless many did, and the author of The Etiquette of Modern Society points out that a thoughtful hostess should always provide biscuits with tea, since these can be eaten more easily than sandwiches without removing one's gloves.

Some poorer households also adopted the practice of afternoon tea, and in some areas women pooled their resources and equipment in order to make such occasions affordable. But more common among the working classes was 'high tea'. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when most people worked in agriculture, the working classes tended to have the main meal of their day at midday, with a much lighter supper late in the evening. But after the industrial revolution, more and more people were employed for long shifts in factories or mines, and hot midday meals were thus less convenient. They were also not approriate for the increasing numbers of children who were at school during the day. The custom developed of having a high tea in the late afternoon, at the end of the working day, consisting of strong tea, and hearty, hot food. Unlike afternoon tea, high tea was the main meal of the day, rather than a stop-gap between lunch and dinner.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, there could be no doubt about the importance of tea to the British people. This was acknowledged by the government during the First World War. Tea was not initially rationed, but tea prices began to rise as a result of ships being sunk by German submarines, and so the government took over the importation of tea and controlled prices. During the Second World War, the government took even more drastic action to safeguard this essential morale-booster. Just two days after war broke out, it took control of all tea stocks, and ordered that the vast reserves then stored in London must be dispersed to warehouses outside the capital in case of bombing. When during 1940 enemy blockades prevented ships from getting through, the Minstry of Food introduced a ration of 2oz of tea per person per week for those over the age of five. This was not a lot, enough for two or three cups a day of rather weak tea. But there was extra tea for those in the armed forces, and on the domestic front for those in vital jobs such as firemen and steel workers. Tea was also sent in Red Cross parcels to British prisoners of war abroad.

The end of the war in 1945 did not signal an immediate end to rationing, and tea remained rationed until October 1952. It was shortly after this that the tea bag, an American invention, began to make an impact on British tea-drinking habits. It was to revolutionise the tea industry, and today 96 per cent of all tea sold in Britain is in tea bag form.

Rationing by no means diminished the British enthusiasm for tea. In January 1946, the author and journalist George Orwell published an essay called 'A Nice Cup of Tea' in the Evening Standard newspaper, calling tea 'one of the main stays of civilsation in this country', and listing his 11 'golden rules' for tea making.He acknowledged the controversial nature of some of them - such as his insistence that the tea should be poured and then the milk added, and that tea should always be drunk without sugar - but he also offered sensible advice to make the 2oz ration go as far as possible, such as using water that is still at the point of boiling, in order to make the strongest brew from the least tea. Orwell also used the ritual of tea-making as a device in his fiction. In his novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying, the main character, Gordon Comstock, makes tea secretly in his rented room as a means to undermine the oppressive authority of his landlady, who does not allow it. But the ritual and secret delight of Comstock's evening cup of tea also reveals something about himself: Comstock, an aspiring poet, has attempted to reject everything that he associates with bourgois society - but he cannot reject its favourite drink.

Certainly for much of the twentieth century, methods of preparing tea were still the subject of some snobbery: in a letter to Nancy Mitford (a social commentator and great satirist of upper class behaviour), the author Evelyn Waugh mentions a mutual friend who uses the expression 'rather milk in first' to express condemnation of those lower down the social scale. Nowadays the 'milk in first or tea in first' debate is altogether more light-hearted, but nonetheless everyone has his or her preferred method of making tea. Tea has for centuries been a beverage at the very heart of social life in Britain - for millions of people today, just for Dr Johnson nearly 250 years ago, tea amuses the evenings, solaces the midnights and welcomes the mornings.

Saturday, 1 February 2014

Catherine of Braganza 
In the contemporary era tea is so much associated with the British way of life that it can come as a surprise to learn that it owes much of its popularity here to a foreign princess. While it is not true to say that Catherine of Braganza, the queen-consort of Charles II of England, actually introduced tea to Britain, she certainly had much to do with it becoming a fashionable and widely drunk beverage.
Portuguese traders imported it to their homeland from the East, and its high price and exoticism helped it to become very fashionable in aristocratic circles and at the royal court,where Catherine grew up. By the mid-seventeenth century, it was very popular there.Tea had also gained popularity in elite society in Holland, through Dutch trade in the East, and in neighbouring countries. But at this stage, Britain somewhat lagged behind. The famous English diarist Samuel Pepys first mentioned drinking tea in his diary entry for 25 September 1660. He wrote that he had been discussing foreign affairs with some friends, 'And afterwards did send for a Cupp of Tee (a China drink) of which I never drank before'. Since Pepys was a member of the wealthy and fashionable London set, his failure to mention tea earlier suggests that it was still unusual at this time. This was soon to change. Just a few months before Pepys was writing, in May 1660, Charles II had been restored to the throne after the Commonwealth administration which had been set up by Oliver Cromwell in 1649 collapsed under the weight of its own unpopularity. But Charles II inherited many debts from that government, and soon ran up new ones of his own, and so was desperately short of cash. One solution to this was to marry a wealthy foreign princess and to demand with her a great deal of money or goods as a dowry. After some negotiation, it was agreed that he would marry Catherine, and that her father King John IV of Portugal would provide with her several ships full of luxury goods, some as gifts and some which could be sold to pay off Charles II's debts. These goods included a chest of tea, the favourite drink at the Portuguese court.
Catherine arrived in Portsmouth on 13 May 1662. It had been a long and stormy crossing, and as soon as she arrived she asked for a cup of tea. So rare was it at this time that there was none available; the princess was offered a glass of ale instead. Not surprisingly, this did not make her feel any better, and for a time she was forced by illness to retire to her bedchamber. Eventually though Catherine and Charles II were married, on 21 May 1662. Initially Catherine, a deeply pious Catholic who had been schooled in a convent, found it difficult to fit in at the bawdy and fun-loving English court. But over time she established herself, and as the pre-eminent woman in the kingdom became something of a trend-setter. Although she adopted English fashions, she continued to prefer the cuisine of her native Portugal - including tea. Soon her taste for tea had caused a fad at the royal court. This then spread to aristocratic circles and then to the wealthier classes. In 1663 the poet and politician Edmund Waller wrote a poem in honour of the queen for her birthday:
Venus her Myrtle, Phoebus has his bays;
Tea both excels, which she vouchsafes to praise.
The best of Queens, the best of herbs, we owe
To that bold nation which the way did show
To the fair region where the sun doth rise,
Whose rich productions we so justly prize.
The Muse's friend, tea does our fancy aid,
Regress those vapours which the head invade,
And keep the palace of the soul serene,
Fit on her birthday to salute the Queen.

As well as being important to the growth of tea's popularity in Britain, the reign of Charles II was also crucial in laying the foundations for the growth of the British tea trade (and of British trade in the east generally). 

The East India Company, the commercial company that enjoyed a monopoly on trade with the 'Indies' (that is, lands east of Africa and west of South America) was highly favoured by Charles II. This was not wholly surprising, since the Company had showered him with gifts upon his restoration to the throne. Charles confirmed its monopoly, and also extended it to give the Company unprecedented powers to occupy by military force places with which they wished to trade (so long as the people there were not Christians). Further, another gift to Charles II in Catherine's dowry was Bombay in India (now called Mumbai). This valuable port was made over to the East India Company, for an annual rent of £10 in gold. In time it became the Company's Far East trading headquarters and was to prove important to the tea trade. It is certainly fitting that when in 1664 the Company opened its first trading point in Macau, the merchants sent a silver case of tea and cinnamon oil as a gift to Charles II and Queen Catherine.

The marriage of Queen Catherine and Charles II in fact was not an altogether happy union. They had no children together, a source of great heartache for them both, and made worse for Catherine by the fact that Charles had several illegitimate children from a series of mistresses. Further, Catherine was a Roman Catholic, which occasionally made her a victim of popular anti-Catholic feeling. Although she remained in England for some years after her husband's death in 1685, she eventually retired to Portugal, where she died in 1705. But while though Catherine's experience as queen of England may not have been an entirely successful or happy one in many ways, it is this young foreign princess whom we have to thank for the development of the British taste for tea.

Friday, 20 December 2013

The London Tea Auction

The London Tea Auction was a grand tradition that lasted 300 years. From the very first event in 1679, until the last sale on 29 June 1998, the London Tea Auction was a regular event that made London the centre of the international tea trade. The first auctions were held by the East India Company, which at the time held the monopoly for the import of tea (and other goods) from China and India. They were held at the headquarters of the Company on Leadenhall Street. The building was decorated with reliefs of ships, sailors, fish and a large coat of arms, and swiftly became known as East India House.

Auctions were held roughly quarterly, and tea was sold 'by the candle'. This meant that rather than allowing bidding to go on for an unlimited length of time, a candle was lit at the beginning of the sale of each lot, and when an inch of the candle had burnt away, the hammer fell and the sale was ended. In the late seventeenth century tea was not always the star of the show, as the auctions sold other goods, primarily fabrics, which the Company had brought back from the East. But by the early eighteenth century, tea was so popular that the London Tea Auction came into its own.
It was something of a riotous affair. An anonymous tea dealer, writing in 1826, described the noise and confusion of an auction taking place at East India House: 'To the uninitiated a Tea sale appears to be a mere arena in which the comparative strength of the lungs of a portion of his Majesty´s subjects are to be tried. No one could for an instant suspect the real nature of the business for which the assemblage was congregated...'
Things changed in 1834, when the East India Company ceased to be a commercial enterprise, and tea became a 'free trade' commodity. The tea auction had to find a new home - and it was moved from the splendour of East India House, via a brief sojourn at a dance studio, to the newly built London Commercial Salerooms on Mincing Lane. Within a few years, various tea merchants followed the auction and established offices of Mincing Lane, earning it the nickname the 'Street of Tea'.
By the middle of the nineteenth century tea was such a popular beverage that auctions took place monthly, and then weekly, and the tradition of selling 'by the candle' was replaced by more practical methods. Tea was sent from India, China, Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka) and Africa for sale at the auction, and as the Auction grew busier and busier, a practice developed of devoting particular days of the week to the sale of teas from each individual country. By the 1950s, a third of all the world's tea was bought through the auction. Once purchased, the tea was sent from the London warehouses either direct to retailers where it was sold loose, or to companies which specialised in blending and packaging. These companies then sold the tea ready packed under various brand names, offering a wide range of choice to tea-drinkers.
Except for breaks necessitated by the First and Second World Wars, the London Tea Auction continued to be held regularly until almost the end of the twentieth century, though its location moved first to Plantation House, then to Sir John Lyon House, and finally in 1990 to the London Chamber of Commerce. Yet its business gradually declined, particularly after India, Sri Lanka and Kenya became independent states in 1947, 1948 and 1963 respectively. The owners of many tea estates preferred to sell their teas as soon as possible after manufacture, rather than go through the costly and timely process of shipping them to England for auction.
To meet this demand auctions were set up in locations including Calcutta, Colombo and Mombassa, and they gradually eroded sales in London. The decline of the London auction was further hastened by new methods of international trading, such as sales via the telephone and the internet. The methods of the auction became increasingly outdated, and it was decided that the sale on 29 June 1998 would be the last. The proceeds of the final auction went to charity, and a grand City tradition came to an end.

Saturday, 14 December 2013

Boston Tea Party







Quick as thought the ships were boarded
Hatches bust and chests displayed;
Axe and hammers help afforded,
What a glorious crash they made.

Quick into the deep descended,
Cursed weed of China’s coast;
Thus at once our fears were ended
Freemen’s rights shall ne’er be lost.

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

The Tea Clippers







Saturday, 23 November 2013

The East India Company

The East India Company was perhaps the most powerful commercial organisation that the world has ever seen. In its heyday it not only had a monopoly on British trade with India and the Far East, but it was also responsible for the government of much of the vast Indian sub-continent. Both of these factors mean that the East India Company (or, to call it by its proper name, the British East India Company) was crucial to the history of the tea trade.
Before 1600, Portugal controlled most European trade with India and the Far East (an area known then as the Indies). But in 1600 Queen Elizabeth I gave a royal charter to a new trading company, the East India Company, by which it was given a monopoly over all British trade with the Indies. The Company soon began competing with the Portuguese, as did later East India Companies, set up in the Netherlands, Denmark and France (though for ease, the term East India Company shall here be used to describe the British East India Company). The East India Company's first major base was in western India, where it found a rich source of exotic textiles and other produce, which could be exported back to Britain or taken further east to exchange for spices.
The Company successfully weathered the various political storms going on in Britain in the seventeenth century. Oliver Cromwell provided the merchants with a new charter after Charles I was deposed and the Commonwealth established in 1649. Then when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, the Company ingratiated itself with him in order to protect its interests. In fact, Charles II actually extended its privileges to allow the Company to take military action to establish itself in places where it wished to trade.
But where does tea fit into all this? Charles II's Queen, Catherine of Braganza, was a Portuguese princess who had grown up with a taste for tea. When she married Charles and came to England, tea gradually became a fashionable drink in courtly and aristocratic circles.This was made possible by the East India Company, which in 1664 placed its first order for tea - for 100lbs of China tea to be shipped from Java for import into Britain. This steady supply continued until 1678, when an import of 4,713lbs swamped the market until 1685, when 12,070lbs was imported, swamping the market again. This pattern continued until the end of the century. But the eighteenth century was very different. Tea drinking really took hold as an activity for the whole population, and the East India Company's imports rocketed. By 1750, annual imports had reached 4,727,992lbs.
In fact though, tea was still very expensive, partly because of the Company's monopoly on the trade and partly because of high taxes imposed upon it. To satisfy the demand of the less wealthy, an enormous amount of tea was smuggled in and sold illicitly - some was even brought in on the East Company's own ships, by crew members who then sold it on to smugglers. This situation continued for years, until the William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister in 1783. With the Commutation Act of 1784, he slashed the tax on tea so dramatically that smuggling became pointless. Thereafter virtually all tea was imported legally by the East India Company.

In the decades leading up to Pitt the Younger's Commutation Act, tea smuggling had really hit the profits of the East India Company. Needing to increase profits and offload the surplus tea that the Company had accumulated during the worst years of the smuggling, it asked the British government for permission to export direct to America, which at this time was still a British colony. Permission was granted, and it was decided that the tea would carry a tax of 3d per lb. The Americans were outraged, many considered such British-imposed taxes illegal. They were doubly angered by the decision that the Company should also have a monopoly on distribution, another move that was intended to help it out of financial trouble. When the Company's ships arrived in Boston in late 1773, the townspeople resolved that the tea should not be brought ashore nor the duty on it on paid. But the colonial administration would not allow the ships to leave port. The deadlock eventually resulted in the Boston Tea Party, when a mass of townspeople, dressed as Native Americans, boarded the ships and threw all the cargo of tea overboard. This was one of the key events that sparked off the American War of Independence.
When America eventually won its independence from British rule in 1783, it began its own free independent tea trade with China. The success of this trade made some people in Britain question the wisdom of the East India Company's ongoing monopoly on British trade with the East. In 1813, the Company lost its monopoly on trade with India, but still had a complete monopoly on trade with China, which meant it was heavily dependent on the tea trade. The Company's charter was due for renewal in 1834, and in the decades before that there was a growing call for the abolition of the monopoly and the instigation of free trade with China as well. Supporters of free trade argued strongly that the Company kept tea prices artificially high in order to maximise its profits, using tactics which included restricting the supply of tea. One anonymous pamphleteer writing in 1824 stated that 'the lordly grocers of Leadenhall Street [where the Company was based] have most scandalously abused the monopoly of which they are now in possession'. Comparing the prices of tea sold at auction in London with the prices at auction in Hamburg and New York, he thundered that 'the monopoly of the tea trade enjoyed by the East India Company costs the people of this country, on average, not less than TWO MILLIONS TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND pounds sterling a year!'
The movement gathered pace, and committees were set up by free trade organisations to examine the evidence. The report of one such committee in 1828 claimed that the restriction of supply by the East India Company, and the artificially high prices, had actually driven down the annual consumption of duty-paid tea per person in Britain, from almost 28oz in 1800 to just 20oz in 1828. This was particularly objectionable because (in the words of another contemporary pamphleteer) tea was one 'of the principal necessaries of life'. The report noted with abject horror that tea consumption among the 'poor convict population' of New South Wales in Australia, which enjoyed direct trade with China, was over three times higher than among the 'free and wealthy people of Great Britain'. It concluded that 'in the United Kingdom, where the Company have a complete monopoly, they fleece their countrymen of the last penny they can give'.
 An added complication was that at the same time, the East India Company's sphere of activity was fundamentally changing.Charles II's charter to the Company had allowed it to use military force where necessary to establish trading stations, and in the seventeenth and eigthteenth centuries it established many well-fortified trading posts in India. Over the course of the eighteenth century, the control of the Mughal Emperor in Delhi was in decline, with independent regional princes taking power instead. But unhappy with this turn of events, the Company increasingly used its private army to establish governmental control over large territories of India. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, with help from the British army, the Company had conquered about half of India.
Thus India was being ruled by twenty-four merchants from the East India Company boardroom in Leadenhall St, London, the same merchants who controlled British trade with the east. This caused great uneasiness to many in Britain, who considered the dual roles of merchant and ruler to be completely incompatible. This view was eloquently summed up by a writer in 1831, who argued that as well as losing its trade monopoly, the Company must have nothing to do with commercial affairs as long as it had anything to do with the government of India. He wrote, 'we object to their (the Company) being allowed to combine in their own persons the seperate and irreconcilable functions of tea-dealers and rulers of a mighty empire. Let them make their election; let them choose as to whether they will be grocers or emperors; but do not allow them to attempt both... To be a good grocer or a cheesemonger, a man must be nothing else. If the Company prefer these useful functions to those of a loftier character, we shall not blame them for their choice. But we protest against their being allowed to carry a sword in one hand and a ledger in the other - to act at once as sovereigns and tea dealers.'
 These arguments were too powerful for the British government to ignore. In 1834, Parliament's new charter for the Company abolished its trading functions altogether. Instead, the Company became an agent of the British government, administering British India on behalf of the Crown. India was still to be ruled from the boardroom of the East India Company, but its rulers would no longer also be tea dealers. China was still the major source of tea, and since the Company had now been relieved of any trading rights with China, its thoughts turned to the possibility of growing tea in India. Previously, when the Company had had a monopoly on the Chinese trade, it had not been in its interests to encourage cultivation of tea elsewhere.
A Tea Committee was established to investigate where in India might be most suitable for the cultivation of tea plants and seed imported from China, and to oversee that cultivation. One obvious area was Assam, where indigenous tea plants had already been found growing. Seeds from China were germinated in Calcutta and then sent on to Assam and other areas to conduct trials. C.A. Bruce, an agent of the East India Company in Assam, was appointed Superintendent of Tea Forests and set about cultivating plantations of both China tea and indigenous tea. In 1838 12 chests of Assam tea were sent to the East India Company in London. Some was used for public relations purposes - sending out samples to stimulate interest - and the rest went to the regular London Tea Auction. This was the first auction of Assam tea in London, and the novelty of the product ensured that it got a very good price. Bruce's experiment had been a resounding success. A new organisation, the Assam Company, was formed to exploit the potential of Assam tea. This new company faced many problems - not least the need to capture and train wild elephants which were necessary to transport tea through the dense jungles - but by 1855 tea cultivation in Assam amounted to over half a million lbs.
Soon though events in India were to take a dramatic turn. The East India Company had lost its trading rights, but it had not lost its desire to make money. The cost of the Company's of India administration was met through heavy taxation and charges on the Indian people - they even had to pay for medals to be struck to commemorate their own conquest. There were localised rebellions and the Company used increasingly heavy-handed tactics to control the Indian population. In May 1857 three regiments of Indian soldiers serving in the Company's army at Meerut near Delhi rebelled. The revolt spread, and led to a vicious conflict as the British forces tried to put it down. The rebellion lasted over a year, during which time both sides committed acts of terrible cruelty. Even after peace was established, the trust between the Indians and the East India Company administration was destroyed. The British government decided that enough was enough, and directly assumed all the Company's powers and possessions in India. The first viceroy, Lord Canning, was appointed to govern British India.
The heyday of the East India Company was well and truly over, but the heyday of Indian tea production was just beginning. With the exception of Darjeeling, which was producing high-quality but low-yielding tea crops, there was little tea cultivation outside Assam. The new British administration in India saw the potential for more widespread cultivation and offered generous land leases to would-be tea planters. By 1888 Indian tea production had reached 86 million lbs - and for the first time British tea imports from India exceeded those from China.