A History of the World in 6 Glasses

In Section 5, Standage discusses tea and its relationship to the British Empire which, at “its height, encompassed a fifth of the world’s surface and a quarter of its population” (175). Beginning with a brief account of the Industrial Revolution, he notes that tea played a role in both the expansion of the empire and in the growth of its domestic manufacturing industry. Its place in the British Empire assured the spread of tea and it became “the most widely consumed beverage on Earth after water” (177). Before explaining how this all came about, Standage first discusses the rise of tea culture in Asia.

Throughout Asia, the tea plant was used as a form of medicine and a source of food, before it was used to make a beverage. It is probable that Buddhist and Taoist monks were the first to drink tea, to aid their meditation. The earliest Chinese references to tea date to the first century BCE, and it seems to have become a common drink around this time. By the fourth century CE, tea was being cultivated deliberately, in order to meet demand and it “became the national beverage during the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE)” (178-9).

At that time, China was the largest empire in the world and one of its main exports was tea, the antiseptic properties of which helped to make water safe to drink. In fact, the value of the Chinese tea trade was such that it prompted the invention of paper money, although bricks of tea themselves were also used as currency. Tea also proved valuable to the Chinese state and the first tax on tea was imposed in 780.

The association of tea with culture and sophistication was assured by the poet, Lu Yu, whose book The Classic of Tea helped to make tea-drinking a highly ceremonial affair. These ceremonies often recognized the religious origins of tea drinking, with tea “seen as a form of spiritual, as well as bodily refreshment” (183). The most elaborate tea ceremonies were developed in Japan, where cultivation of tea began in the twelfth century.

When the Portuguese reached China in the sixteenth century, they found a large, technologically advanced, and self-sufficient empire. They paid tribute to the emperor in exchange for the right to trade with China and, in 1557, were allowed to set up a small trading post at Macao; “other Europeans were excluded from direct trade with China altogether” (185).

The first shipment of tea was brought to Europe by the Dutch in 1610, where it was regarded as a novelty; it later spread to France and then England. All the tea at this point was green, as the process for producing black tea had not been discovered. Black tea was produced from the same plant as the green variety but processed differently and was considered, by the Chinese, to be inferior and only fit for foreigners. Eventually, black tea became more popular in Britain, partly because the addition of ash and willow leaves—to make the tea last longer—was safer with black tea than with green. Because it was so expensive, tea had less impact than coffee during the seventeenth century, but like coffee, the health benefits of tea were widely debated. Despite these obstacles, Standage notes that while “almost nobody in Britain drank tea at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and nearly everybody did by the end of it” (187-8).

Tea was introduced to the British court in the mid-seventeenth century by the Portuguese wife of Charles II, Catherine of Braganza, who made it a fashionable drink. Another element in the popularity of tea in Britain was the British East India Company, which had a monopoly on importing goods to England from the East Indies, including tea. Some of this tea was given as a gift to the king, securing the company greater powers on behalf of the empire and eventually making it “the manifestation of British power in the East” (190). Importing tea became an important part of the company’s business and many of their ships’ captains used their personal trade allowance to import tea, from which they made a large profit. Unlike other goods, such as textiles, importing tea didn’t threaten any domestic producers, although it remained a luxury item until the end of the seventeenth century.

When the British East India Company established trading posts in China in the eighteenth century, they could import tea directly from the source, which reduced costs and allowed tea to become more widely available. “At its height, tea represented more than 60 percent of the company’s total trade, and the duty on tea accounted for around 10 percent of British government revenue”(192). As a result, the company had a lot of political influence, which only increased after 1795, when the rival Dutch East India Company was dissolved, leaving the British almost completely in control of the global tea trade.

When first introduced to England, tea was a ceremonial affair much like in China or Japan, though not quite so elaborate, and delicate porcelain teacups were imported from China alongside tea itself. Teashops were opened beside coffeehouses—which were becoming less popular and less reputable—and, significantly, they were open to women. Afternoon tea became fashionable and tea gardens opened in London as places to socialize, especially with the opposite sex. However tea soon spread to all classes of British society, and “eventually became cheaper than any drink except water” (195).