Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Posted by 醉茶生 at 10:34 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Related

Tea was not widely available in England in the first half of the 17th century. In the diary of Samuel Pepys, there is an entry dated 25 Sep 1660, in which he records drinking “a Cupp of Tee (a China drink)” for the very first time. Tea was therefore known in England at that time, but it was still considered an unfamiliar and exotic drink.
King Charles II was restored to the English throne in May 1660, and 1661, he signed a marriage treaty to marry Catharine of Braganza (Catarina de Bragança), the Portugese Infanta. The royal bride arrived in Portsmouth on 13 May 1963, and in her dowry (which was considerable) included many treasure ships, a chest of tea, the port of Tangiers (in Morocco) and the port of Bombay (modern Mumbai, in India).

The stormy crossing from Portugal to England thoroughly exhausted Catherine, and on her arrival she asked for a cup of tea, but this was so rare at the time that it was only possible to offer her a glass of ale instead. Although Catharine would adopt English fashions, all her life, she could only accept the food and drink of the Portugese court, which included tea. However, the Queen’s consumption of tea made the beverage fashionable among the wealthy and privileged of England, so that within a few years of her arrival, the consumption of tea was almost universal among the English upper classes.

The British East India Company had been favoured by Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth, and so, after the Restoration of the Monarchy, they made every effort to ingratiate themselves with the new King by showering him with many gifts. The King responded by not only renewing their monopoly, but also allowing them the use of Bombay for an annual rent of £10. Bombay became the trading quarters of The Company in the Far East, and in return for this favour, when The Company opened its first trading post in Macau, they presented the royal couple with a silver case of tea and a flask of cinnamon oil. The courtly fashion for tea was supplied by The Company, who made their first order for 100 pounds of China tea in 1664, just one year after Catherine’s arrival. This expanded to 12,070 pounds in 1685, and by the middle of the 18th century, tea drinking had became an activity of the whole population. This caused the imports of The Company to sky rocket and by 1750 The Company was importing 4,727,922 pounds of China tea annually. Tea drinking became so widespread that a pamphleteer of the 1820’s declared tea to be one “of the principal necessaries of life.” The monopoly of The Company on the tea trade continued until 1834, when it was eventually abolished by parliament.

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