“Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa around,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.”
William Cowper (1731 - 1800)
The poet William Cowper's lines in praise of tea echo down the years. The dried young leaves of Camilla sinensis have been responsible for driving a revolution in shipping technology - as well as standing as a symbol of a revolution - have altered the course of world trade, and have underpinned the largest empire the world has ever seen.
The tea bush is an evergreen, predominantly from the tropical and sub-tropical regions of Asia, but it has also been planted and cultivated in many countries around the world, even in regions which were classified as temperate. For example, Russian samovars are fed with tea cultivated near the Black Sea region, and 'thanks' to climate change, the unthinkable has happened; English Breakfast Tea is now grown in - England (in Cornwall, to be exact)!
It is true that the higher the elevation at which tea is grown, the subtler the flavor - the Nilgiris Mountains in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu yields a fine, full-flavored tea, for example - but wherever it is grown the tea bush needs a reasonable supply of water, and preferable acidic soil.
Tea had been part of the culture in China and Japan for a thousand years and more by the time tea reached its spiritual home - the British Isles. Japan may have its tea ceremony and its tea houses, China may have its delicate oolong and white teas and a written record of the drink dating back to the 8th century, with the publication of Lu Yu's "The Classic Art of Tea", but it is difficult to imagine a group of people more intimately involved in the growing, processing, shipping, blending, marketing and consuming of tea than the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish (who drink a world record AVERAGE of six cups of tea per head, per day). The first tea 'estate' was organized by the British in Assam, in India in 1837. Prior to this, the wife of King Charles II, a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, had introduced tea drinking to the Royal circle in 1662; as an aside, as part of her dowry she brought to the Crown the archipelago of Bombay, which was to grow into the jewel in the crown of British India.
Portuguese missionaries had brought plants back from China and they had been successfully grown on the Azores (a Portuguese group of islands in the Atlantic). There followed quite a long period when tea was a drink of the privileged few, only. Imported to Britain in sealed chests (to prevent the tea being spoilt), it would have been kept in finely constructed wooden 'tea caddies', usually equipped with a lock and key. (I, myself, have a small, Georgian, cylindrical cedarwood caddy, silver-mounted, of which I am quite proud). At first, the proprietors of London coffee houses where forced to advertise the new 'tee' on their menus, by extolling its medicinal properties. Later, of course, modern science has, indeed, verified the medicinal benefits - digestive, cardiac, antihypertensive and others - which are now accepted. The presence of caffeine which is so much enjoyed by many of us, is due to that compound being concentrated in the phloem and xylem vessels of the young growing leaves at the tip of the shoot. It is thought that the caffeine acts as a deterent to the predation of these tips by insects; the fact that we get the benefits of the 'lift' is purely co-incidental!
Dutch merchants imported tea into Europe via their 'treaty port' of Amoy, and other European nations followed suit using concessions wrung from the almost powerless Chinese court. In the 1830s, 'clippers' - fast sailing ships with long, slim hulls designed to maximize speed at the expense of cargo space - which had previously concentrated on the carriage of opium ( a shameful, 'forced' trade with China) and other commodities, began to be used to transport the first tea of the season between China and London. A huge premium was paid for the first shipload brought to market, so a great deal of experimentation was undertaken - even water tank scale models were constructed by one Scottish shipyard. These 'tea clippers' had a short blaze of glory, until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought the advantage back to the new-fangled steamships.The clippers drifted away to the Australian wool trade. Probably the most famous of the surviving vessels is the Scottish-built 'Cutty Sark', which lies in dry dock in Greenwich, London. She suffered a serious fire in May, 2007, but she was saved, and is almost fully restored at this time.
Just as they were to later break the Portuguese monopoly on rubber by smuggling rubber seeds out of Brazil (controlled by Portugal at the time) to the Federated Malay States in 1877, so the English set out to stealthily acquire tea plants from China, and cultivate them in India, and so break the Chinese monopoly (Japanese tea was not available; Admiral Perry's 'Black Fleet' and the 'opening' of Japan was some time in the future).
Tea planters and their tea estates became ubiquitous in Assam and other areas of India. Tea plantations also sprang up in the Kenyan Highlands in East Africa, and on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Modern day tea plantations are also to be found in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Taiwan and, of course China and Japan. The production of tea consists of a number of stages - which vary according to the cultivar being grown, and the type of tea which is being produced. Although green - and even white - tea are popular here in the United States, much of Europe drink black tea, with a stronger, bolder taste.
The first growth spurt of the season, usually in Spring, is called the 'flush', and the growth point and the first two leaves are plucked by hand from the waist high bushes. If they were left untrimmed, they would be around 50 feet tall; you can usually get a second 'flush' in Summer, and exceptionally, a third in certain areas. The leaves are then left to wilt, usually spread out on cloth. They are then rolled, to squeeze out more of their sap, and spread out so that the plant enzymes in the leaf can initiate oxidation. The leaves begin to turn light brown at this stage. When the process of oxidation has gone far enough, it is brought to an abrupt holt by heating the leaves in hot air; the color deepens to dark brown or even black. Finally, they are sorted and graded before being sent to the tea blender, who will mix MANY batches together to achieve a balanced tea (if it is for bulk sale, that is). Single varietal teas DO exist, but they are expensive. Most of these processes still involve a lot of manual work, although there is one major change. At the 'rolling' stage, you can substitute a mechanical 'cut-tear-curl' process, which chops the leaf to small pieces. It also produces a lot of fine tea dust, which is ideal for cheaper tea bags (the original of which were small, silk sample pouches, first used commercially in 1904 by a tea merchant named Thomas Sullivan from New York).
What happened when tea ceased to be the preserve of the rich, and became available at reasonable price in the British Isles? Virtually a societal change. Alcoholism had been rife in Georgian and Victorian London. You only have to see Hogarth's print 'Gin Lane' (1751) to see the terrible damage that was done. Victorian London was no better, and Charles Dickens' first major work, 'Pickwick Papers' details some shocking episodes. In response the Salvation Army was founded in 1865, on a 'no alcohol' platform, and tea became their drink of choice! The modern Co-operative Movement was started in the northern city of Rochdale in 1844, and one of their aims was to provide necessities - including tea - at the lowest prices possible to the working classes.
By 1907, Ringtons Tea had been founded (see diary) to deliver tea, door-to-door, in the North of England using horse-drawn vehicles (my Mother loved Ringtons tea), and the great tea houses and blenders were coming to the fore. Twinings, founded in 1709 by Thomas Twining, is the oldest tea blenders and merchants in the world, and is still a major player in the market today (by an absolute freakish chance, the person who had preceded me, as an Assistant Keeper, Leicester Museum of Technology, was Allison Twining, heir to the family fortune - I met Allison in Cornwall, later; and yes, she enjoyed tea!)
WW2 brought a crisis. Food imports, in general, were well down -munitions had priority - and tea was strictly rationed and of poor quality. Servicemen had to withstand a terrible thing when in the field. 'Composite rations' contained compressed cubes of tea dust, sugar and dried milk. You were supposed to BOIL these, then drink the result - I now believe that all our soldiers were heroes! These 'cubes' were universally loathed. The chain of tea shops operated by J. Lyons & Co., however, were still catering to serviceman and civilian alike, and if you were fortunate enough to be close to York, you had the famous 'Bettys' to go to - they have fabulous mirrors signed with a diamond pen by many service personnel.
So, we came out of WW2 with little intact, except our desire for newly-unrationed tea! This British love of tea persists to this day, and here you see a wonderful little tea shop, 'The Bone China Tea Room' in the pretty town of Hay-on-Wye. My brother, sister-in-law and I were inside - and ordering tea - with a minute of this shot being taken.
Everyone has their own way of making tea; it depends on your cultural background to an extent, and your age group. As for myself, I brought a 'local' Denby stoneware, 3 pint, '1922 pattern' teapot with me (and teacups and mugs, too). The water quality is less hard, here, so I have adjusted things accordingly. I have over 40 teas to hand - no, I DON'T drink iced tea; someone offered me a long glass of it, once; I managed to stay upright, which I thought was a major victory. It took me a while to get used to asking for 'hot tea' when I'm out.
One more thing - I'm trying to get the locals up here in Boston to admit that they can't make tea like the Scots can.....I keep telling them that throwing crates of the stuff into cold salt water will just ruin it !
Enjoy the short wartime film...................oh, and don't think I'm going to part with Granaidh's recipe for tea bread, either!
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