Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round
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.
My characters and I have this in common–we swill tea. I thought I’d try and explain why tea is so important to the English–there’s even an official website, http://www.tea.co.uk which has some fascinating stuff on modern tea drinking, like how to judge your boss from the way they hold their teacup, celebrity teacup designs, and the official Brit medical establishment’s view on tea drinking (it’s good for you! Ha! It contains antioxidants!). And in regencies, it’s always the stuff from China and India, with milk and sugar, none of those nasty herbal medicines, thank you. Why the milk? I’m not sure. One theory is that early English manufacturers couldn’t make a porcelain cup that would stand up to the temperature of the tea, so the milk was there to cool it down. Considering that even the most clunky of stoneware has to fire at about 1200F I think this is unlikely–unless the china was cracked to begin with. It tastes better that way, so I guess that’s how it came about (oops, some milk spilled in my tea but I’ll drink it anyway).
First, the pics. Top left, a Spode teapot with a floral pattern and gold wotsits from the early nineteenth century. Left, a tea caddy from about 1820, made with mahogany and rosewood veneers, two compartments for different sorts of tea, and a glass mixing bowl in the middle. This sort of caddy was used in the drawing-room for the elegant hostess to mix her own, and expensive tea blend. Lower left, an eighteenth-century China import teapot.
Tea was discovered by accident (oops, a leaf fell in my cup, I think I’ll drink it anyway) by Shen Nung, Chineses scholar and herbalist in 2737 BC. By the Tang dynasty (618-906 AD) ch’a was China’s national drink. It caught on in India and came to Europe in the sixteenth century, and to the coffeehouses of London in the mid-seventeenth. Catherine of Braganza supposedly brought a gift of tea from Portugal for her husband-to-be Charles II. At any rate, by
1660, London merchant Thomas Garway issued a broadsheet selling tea for sale at £6 and £10 per pound. Garway claimed tea was “wholesome, preserving perfect health until extreme old age, good for clearing the sight,” able to cure “gripping of the guts, cold, dropsies, scurveys” and claiming that “it could make the body active and lusty.” Within a hundred years tea was widespread in England, supplanting beer as the drink of choice, and served in coffeehouses and pleasure gardens like Vauxhall and Ranelagh.
When the main meal of the day moved from midday to the evening fashionable hostesses served tea with snacks such as cakes, sandwiches, and nuts to tide themselves over until dinnertime. I’ve read this was attributed to Anna, seventh Duchess of Bedford in around 1840, which sounds extremely late. At the other end of the social spectrum, from about 1740 to 1820, workers on farms and in factories defended their right to tea breaks, to the fury of industrialists, landowners and clerics who asserted the habit encouraged indolence and cut down on productivity. Tea drinking, because it requires boiling water, is also thought to have reduced mortality rates among the poor in cities.
Later on tea was championed by the teetotal movement, and with the opening of teahouses in the 1860s, furthered the feminist movement in providing gathering places for unescorted women. High tea developed as an evening meal among poor and middle-class families, who still had their main meal at midday, and included somewhat more substantial fare than the afternoon tea of the aristocracy. In our house it could include sardines, boiled eggs, sticks of celery, sandwiches, scones, and something my mother called Scotch pancakes (a sort of griddle cake).
Any more tea myths or facts? Favorite teas? I’ll have a nice cup of Assam now…
Janet
The things I learn here! Thanks, Janet. I love tea, too, esp. with milk and sugar (I also love coffee, but that’s a saga for another time).
My favorite kind of tea is Lapsang Souchong, a super-smoky tea that requires a LOT of milk. I have to admit to brewing Lipton though, too. But not Red Rose. Never Red Rose.
Megan, I like just about any tea EXCEPT lapsang souchong. It’s like drinking boiled tires. Ugh!
I think Red Rose is fine, and pretty much any other kind of black tea. My current favorite is what Tetley sells in the US under the name “British Blend” — tastes just like the kind of tea I’d get at a cheap caff in England. 🙂
I drink my tea with milk, NO sugar. Todd is not quite as strong mentally as I, and must add sugar to his.
We have sometimes tried single-estate teas with lots of letters after their names, and I like those too. They do have more character than bagged tea. Basically, I just like tea.
(I’m not counting things with mango in them. Or cherry.) 🙂
Cara
I love tea! I’ve always liked it, but it was while living in England that it became an obsession. Now, I can’t begin the day without a cup of tea, and I have to keep an electric kettle in my office.
I like many kinds of tea; but I must admit, Lapsang Souchong is not my favorite. On the other hand, it’s very economical: to keep it at a bearable level of strength, I just wave the teabag vaguely in the direction of the boiling water, so the same teabag can last for many, many cups of tea.
As for these rumors about my mental strength: pish-tosh! I do not need to add sugar to my tea; I merely choose to do so (or actually, more often honey). It is useful in maintaining the general sweetness of my nature.
I’m pretty fond of tea-the-meal as well. Though my first attempt to bake scones made me realize what they were talking about when they referred to “The Stone of Scone.”
Todd-who-likes-a-nice-Assam
Count me in as a great tea-lover, as well! It’s hard to pick just one for a favorite–the old stand-by Earl Gray is always nice, but I’ve developed a fondness for green tea lately (or a new white tea blend that a specialty gourmet store here has started stocking).
A new tearoom also just opened up near my neighborhood, and I’m wild with joy! They have a whole menu full of tea selections, as well as a myriad of cakes and sandwiches. I wish you were all here so we could go together–the friends I went with last week got impatient with me, because I couldn’t decide which kind of tea I wanted!
Well, Cara and Todd, maybe some people LIKE to drink boiled tires. Although I have to say, I probably would go for Earl Grey if I’m feeling less…resilient.
And Amanda, I wish we were all together to drink tea (and other beverages) too. Maybe someday we’ll have a Risky Reunion.
Great info, Janet!
I must confess I’m a tea “ho” as I drink and enjoy just about anything called tea, though I’ll save dear Bertie’s sensibilities by not going into detail…
A Riskies’ reunion would be great and I would love to have someone knowledgeable like Cara enlighten my ignorance.
Elena 🙂