In 2021, a video with more than 1 million views on the online social platform TikTok sparked heated discussions among netizens in the UK and the US. In the video, Michelle, a mother from North Carolina, USA, who now lives in the UK, and her daughter shared how to make a cup of English tea. First, put the teacup under the tap to collect half a cup of water, then put the teacup in the microwave to heat it, then put milk, tea bags and sugar, stir, and a cup of English tea is ready. After the video was released, British netizens left messages to express their dissatisfaction, and even said: This is a crime! British Ambassador to Washington, Ms. Karen Pierce, also found it intolerable and asked the British army to shoot another video demonstrating how to make a cup of authentic English tea. This move also aroused the dissatisfaction of Mr. Woody Johnson, the US Ambassador to London. The US Ambassador recorded a video of making coffee expressionlessly in response, and directly named Ambassador Karen Pierce: This is a perfect cup of coffee. Unexpectedly, the American ambassador waited for the response from the Italian Embassy, saying that it was just a cup of Americano coffee. The media also followed up. The title of the article in the British Guardian: "American woman's barbaric brewing online triggered the transatlantic tea war." The title of the Daily Telegraph: "How to make English tea has triggered a diplomatic storm." In fact, the feud between Britain and the United States over tea has historical origins, which can be traced back to China, the origin of tea.
China is undoubtedly the "mother country" of tea. The history of tea in Europe can be traced back to the Age of Exploration in the 15th century. The global trade brought about by the Great Navigation was originally intended to find ocean routes from Western Europe to Asia to bring back spices from the East. In the process of Chinese tea "going west" to influence Europe, European countries that performed outstandingly in the Age of Exploration all made great contributions. The first Europeans to record tea in writing were the Venetians and the Portuguese. In 1545, the Venetian Ramos published his geographical work "Voyages", which recorded a conversation between him and the Persian merchant Haji Muhammad. According to the Persian merchant, the people of Daqin (Qin was the name of China for a long time in foreign countries) drank a drink called tea, which had a very good therapeutic effect. He also said that if tea was introduced to Persia and Europe, local merchants would no longer sell rhubarb (a very precious medicinal material in Eurasia at that time) and would switch to tea.
In 1586, Portuguese traveler Pedro Teixeira began his round-the-world journey with a merchant ship. After traveling to Goa, Malacca and Persia, and reaching Italy by land from India, he published the book "The King of Persia". In the book, he recorded that Chinese tea was welcomed by local people in Turkey, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia and Syria, and he also saw dried tea leaves in Malacca.
In the context of the era of great navigation, in 1581, the Netherlands developed from a small industrial country mainly engaged in navigation to a global business giant, marked by the establishment of the Dutch East India Company in 1602. Five years later, a merchant ship of this company transported a ship of tea from Macau to Java. This was the first European merchant ship carrying tea in history. Soon, the Dutch, who found it profitable, began to purchase tea in Hirado on the west coast of Kyushu, Japan, and the tea arrived in Europe the following year.
When tea arrived in Europe, the first people to be conquered were doctors. Tea was initially sold in pharmacies as medicine, which was quite similar to the Chinese's initial understanding of tea. In 1657, the first coffee shop selling tea appeared in London, England. The poster of the coffee shop read: "Come and drink tea, a magical drink from the East, to treat headaches, stones, edema, amnesia..."
Historically, tea was accepted by the British upper class due to a famous marriage. In 1662, Princess Catherine of Braganza of Portugal married King Charles II of England. At that time, Charles II was in debt, and the king was most looking forward to the princess's generous dowry. The princess' dowry included the two important cities of Tangier and Mumbai, plus 500,000 pounds. Although the 500,000 pounds was not cashed in the end, it was replaced by sugar, tea and various spices. After the marriage, Catherine became the supreme and beloved queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, and became the focus of everyone's attention and topic of conversation. People rushed to imitate her dress, the utensils she used, and her hobby of drinking tea. Catherine's arrival quickly spread the trend of drinking tea among the British royal family.
In 1663, the poet Edmund Waller wrote a special ode "The Queen of Tea":
Venus her Myrtle, Phoebus hashis bays;
Tea both excels, which she vouchsafes to praise.
The best of Queens, and 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,
Repress those vapours which the head invade.
And keep the palace of the soul serene,
Fit on her birthday to salute the
Queen.
In addition to Queen Catherine's personal actions, the most noteworthy thing is her dowry, Bombay. For a long time, Britain bought tea from the Dutch East India Company and learned about tea tasting techniques. In 1668, the King of England handed over all the military, political and economic power in the Bombay region to the British East India Company. In 1684, the British East India Company began to try to import tea directly from China. In 1689, the first ship of tea arrived in Britain smoothly.
By the 18th century, tea drinking had become popular in Britain. At that time, many British literati were fond of tea, and tea-related content began to appear in many British literary works. The comedy "The Lady of Tea Love" staged in the early 18th century was a vivid portrayal of the tea drinking fashion at that time. Samuel Johnson, a leader of British literature, said that he was "a typical stubborn tea drinker who enjoys the evening with tea, soothes the night with tea, and greets the dawn with tea." In the mid-18th century, tea created 90% of the profits for the British East India Company, making it the most profitable company in the world.
Although the price of tea in Britain was higher than that of coffee and cocoa at that time, in the 1730s, the consumption of tea exceeded the sum of coffee and cocoa. Compared with the growing demand for Chinese tea in Europe, including Britain, China at that time was always not very interested in Western products. Before the 19th century, China had always enjoyed a huge trade surplus. The British, who were addicted to tea, almost exhausted the treasury. In the end, the task of returning silver fell on opium. Since the 19th century, opium produced in India has caused a large amount of silver to flow out of China. William Gladstone, who later became prime minister, confessed in his diary: "I am deeply worried about the crimes my country has committed against China. God will punish England for this." We all know what happened next. The Opium War broke out between China and Britain in 1840. After losing the Opium War, China was forced to open its doors, and China's tea production and trade were on the verge of collapse. However, tea consumption in Britain was booming at this time. In Victorian Britain, people used to eat only two meals a day, morning and evening. Dinner usually started after 7:30. During this period, people were often hungry, which was a painful torment for ladies who could not appear "too hungry" at the table. In the 1840s, Duchess Anna Russell, who was often hungry, asked to enjoy tea and cakes alone in her bedroom every afternoon, and gradually, this became her regular habit. At first, the Duchess enjoyed afternoon tea alone in the bedroom of the country house of Woburn Abbey. Later, she began to invite female friends to enjoy it together. This habit gradually spread with the Duchess's social life. Later, the habit of afternoon tea was brought to London by the Duchess, which soon changed the lifestyle of the entire upper class in Britain at that time. The Duchess was also a close friend of Queen Victoria at that time, which made the Queen a fan of afternoon tea. The Victoria Sponge, a popular cake in British afternoon tea, was named after the Queen. The place for enjoying afternoon tea gradually moved from the ladies' bedroom to the living room, forming the custom of drinking "Low Tea", that is, the ladies sat in the armchairs in the living room and leaned over to enjoy the tea and snacks on the low dining table. The so-called "High Tea" is the opposite of "Low Tea", which is the way for working families to drink tea around the dining table. Later, afternoon tea gradually moved to the beautiful gardens of their own homes, and men also joined in. Afternoon tea became a social way that was popular among the British people. Tea also became the national drink of the United Kingdom. Black tea with silky milk was served in exquisite teaware from China, exuding a charming aroma. Taking a sip and eating a small piece of dessert accompanied by the surrounding music, everyone seemed to be immersed in the heyday of the British Empire.
In 1849, the consumption of tea in the United Kingdom was 44.3 million pounds, and in 1871 it reached 135 million pounds: data showed that the consumption of tea in the United Kingdom quadrupled from 1850 to around 1875.
Britain wanted to grow tea trees locally to obtain low-cost tea from the beginning of the rise of tea culture in the United Kingdom. As early as 1788, Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, suggested that the King of England introduce tea from China to the United Kingdom, and personally wrote a manual introducing the Chinese tea planting method. However, the suggestion was shelved because it conflicted with the trade monopoly of the Dutch East India Company. With the abolition of the Dutch East India Company's trade monopoly, Britain began to try to grow tea trees in its Indian colonies. In 1835, the British Gordon sneaked into southern China and bought a large number of Chinese tea seeds and shipped them to Kolkata. Of course, tea seeds alone were not enough. Gordon also hired tea makers from Ya'an, Sichuan to go to India to teach local people how to grow and make tea. Therefore, the method of making semi-fermented Wuyi tea was not the method of making semi-fermented Wuyi tea, but the method of making stir-fried green tea. The Chinese tea seeds brought back by Gordon that year successfully bred more than 40,000 tea seedlings in Kolkata. Most of these tea seedlings were transplanted to Assam and the foothills of the Himalayas. It was finally shown that Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas was the most suitable fertile soil for the growth of Chinese tea trees. In 1836, Chinese tea makers successfully tried to make tea using the tender buds of native tea trees in Assam. Although the number was small, it brought motivation to those who came later.
In 1848, a British botanist named Robert Fortune came to China for the second time. Today, he is better known as a "plant hunter". In his diary, he revealed the purpose of his trip: to collect some tea trees and seeds for the plantations of the British East India Company in the northwestern provinces of India. He first came to Ningbo. Perhaps he felt that Ningbo's green tea was not suitable for the British taste, so he did not choose to collect tea trees and seeds in Ningbo, but came to Xiuning, Anhui, where he collected local tea seeds and seedlings and collected information on the planting and processing of green tea. He then went south again, and his destination was the famous black tea producing area - Wuyi Mountain in northern Fujian, but Fortune did not clearly understand at the time that the difference between green tea and black tea was caused by the difference in processing technology. In his diary, he wrote: "But I still have to admit that I would be more satisfied if I could visit the black tea producing area in person. I don't want to go back to Europe with the idea that I can't fully guarantee that the tea seedlings introduced by me to the tea gardens in the northwestern states of India are indeed from the best tea producing areas in China..." Finally, Fortune arrived at Xingcun in Wuyi Mountain, which he considered to be a big market for black tea trading at the time. There, he visited the tea gardens and collected 400 tea seedlings. After achieving his goal, Fortune left Wuyi Mountain and came to Shanghai, and sent the collected tea seedlings and seeds to India one after another. In the summer of 1850, these tea seedlings and seeds arrived in Calcutta. Fortune proudly said in his diary: "Today, the Himalayan Tea Garden can boast that many of the tea tree species they have come from China's first-class tea producing areas-that is, the green tea producing areas of Huizhou and the black tea producing areas of Wuyi Mountain." In the continuous hunting and smuggling, the pattern of the world tea trade was reversed.
For a long time, tea and sugar, which are indispensable in English afternoon tea, were expensive luxury goods, and only aristocrats and middle-class families could afford them. In the 19th century, the price of tea in Britain fell to a level that ordinary people could accept. The North American people played an indispensable role in this, as it was still a British colony at that time.
As early as the mid-17th century, when the Dutch brought tea to their colony New Amsterdam, today's New York, tea had begun to conquer this "New World" of America. In the 1720s, according to the laws at the time, the North American colonies could only import tea from Britain. But in fact, 70% of the tea entering the North American colonial continent was smuggled in. In 1763, after the Seven Years' War, Britain took over the French colonies in North America. The British government believed that the war was fought for the interests of the colonies and that the colonies should pay for the war expenses. The following year, the British government began to levy stamp duties locally, and later established new taxes, stipulating that tariffs should be levied on the import of certain goods into the North American colonies. This move caused resistance from the colonial people, and the local people began to boycott British goods. Tea was the most important item among all commodities and became the target of public criticism. People cursed this thing that made people depressed through newspapers, leaflets, etc. In the spring of 1769, major North American ports such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia concluded an import ban agreement to jointly resist the British government's new tariff policy. In 1773, the British Parliament passed a bill authorizing the East India Company to sell tea to the North American colonies, and the tea tax was still retained. On November 28, the "Dartmouth" loaded with 114 boxes of tea arrived in Boston nine weeks after leaving London. On the evening of December 16, a small group of locals rushed to the port, shouting: "Let Boston Harbor become a big teapot tonight!" They boarded the cargo ship, forced the customs officers to go ashore, and then chopped the boxes of tea with axes and poured the tea into the sea. In an instant, the sea surface of the port was full of tea. This is the famous "Boston Tea Party". After the incident, it quickly spread throughout the colonies, and people destroyed all the tea they found. On April 19, 1775, the gunshots in Lexington shocked the world and the American Revolutionary War began. Eight years later, Britain officially recognized the independence of the United States, and the young United States was born.
After Britain lost its American colonies forever, counterfeit and smuggled tea became increasingly rampant. William Pitt, the then British Prime Minister, made up his mind and promulgated the Tea and Windows Act to reduce the tea tax from 119% to 12.5%. "The custom of drinking tea spread to the most remote villages in the United Kingdom, and families who were worried about their livelihoods could also drink a few cups of hot tea" (Dennis Forrest, "The Englishman's Tea").
There is a British proverb: "When the clock strikes four, everything in the world stops for tea in an instant." When people today pick up their teacups at four o'clock, I wonder if they will still remember that there was a time when tea was involved in wars because of people's greed, and it also soothed people's hearts in wars. During the "World War II", British soldiers drank tea in tanks, in trenches, and on rescue ships during the Dunkirk evacuation, and people drank tea sitting on the ruins of the streets of London... In the end, they still won.
Tea is the essence of heaven and earth, but tea is made by people and is drunk by people. Without "people", tea is just a leaf. But I don't want to tell the story of a leaf. What I care about is always "people". I will tell you about every person, group of people, and generation related to tea that I know, and the efforts and emotions they have made for tea. In the eyes of many people, tea is just a trivial matter, but this trivial matter is like a drop in the long river, reflecting the light of each era and the style of generations.
