Virtual Tea - Tea Tales

Tea Tales

Assam: Hidden Tea of India

For thousands of years, all tea came from China because that seemed to be the only place where the tea plant, "camellia sinensis," would grow. In the early 1800's, a Scotsman by the name of Robert Bruce ventured into the Assam region of India, a remote province between mainland India and Burma, and encountered the natives of the region drinking tea that they made from local plants. However, since it was "the last place" that the experts of the day expected to find tea, being in a low lying jungle valley, the idea was summarily dismissed.

Robert died, but his brother Charles kept up the fight to prove that the plants found growing wild in Assam as early as 1815 were in fact, tea plants. It took him nearly twenty years to prove the case. Even then, it was thought that the tea from China must be superior to the native plants and seeds were smuggled out of China at great cost and planted in the Assam region of India. It wasn’t until sometime later that the tea companies were persuaded to abandon the Chinese plants, which were not faring well in the warm Indian climates, and to return to cultivating the native Assam tea plants which thrived there.

The rest is history, as they say, and India became and still remains the world’s largest tea producing country, with over one million acres of tea under cultivation. Except for tea grown in China, almost all of the teas grown throughout Asia today are descended from those first hearty, wild Assam plants.

Assam teas have a full-bodied and, some would say, slightly "malty" taste to them, which makes them quite unique. They are excellent by themselves but strong enough to take milk and sugar well. Assams also form the base of many of the so-called "Scottish Breakfast" blends. Next time you drink a cup of Assam tea, remember what a great debt the tea lovers of the world owe to this small region of India.

Thomas Lipton: Sir Tea

Considered by many to be the father of modern advertising, Thomas J. Lipton was born in Scotland in 1850 and opened his first grocery store in Glasgow in 1871. A promotional wizard, he had 20 stores by 1880, and over 300 ten years later. By that time, he had become a household name throughout Britain, as much for his hard work ethic as his innovative retailing.

Lipton's tea empire began with a visit to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1891, where a recent blight had wiped out many of the coffee planters. Buying five bankrupt plantations (later adding about a dozen more) he switched production to tea and coined the phrase "Direct from the Tea Gardens to the Teapot."

He wanted the world to equate Ceylon tea with "Lipton" and largely succeeded. Before long he had them believing that his "Orange Pekoe" was a type of tea (not simply a term long used to denote the largest tea leaf size) and added "Accept No Substitutes" as a sales slogan. In ten years, the millionaire grocer became a multi-millionaire tea merchant famous worldwide.

Sir Thomas was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1898 and spent much of the remainder of his life trying to win back the America’s Cup, yachting’s most prestigious prize, for Britain. Perhaps this was the only area in his life where "Sir Tea" failed (despite five attempts). Lipton Tea remains one of the tea trade’s largest worldwide success stories.

Editor’s Note: Perhaps Sir Tea was too successful, as many people today seem to think that "tea" and "Lipton" are synonymous terms. Needless to say, there are many teas that many tea drinkers find preferable to the ubiquitous Lipton tea bag.

Earl Grey: the Man, the Myth, the Tea

It is said that the Earl of Sandwich, who couldn't seem to tear himself away from the gambling tables long enough for lunch, had his valet bring him meats and other sustenance between two slices of bread so that he could eat and continue the games at the same time and thus the "sandwich" was born. Like the English Earl of Sandwich, the second Earl Grey is long gone but his name lives. This Earl, whose given name was Charles, was Prime Minister for a time under the reign of William IV (1830-1837). Like many of the rich and famous of the time, he had his own personal blend of tea prepared to his specifications.

What made the good Earl's blend so unusual at the time was that it was the first known scented tea drunk in the West. No one knows for sure where the Earl came up with it. The most fanciful story was that a Chinese Mandarin gave him the formula in gratitude for saving his life. This is unlikely, especially since the bergamot orange is unknown in China.

The bergamot (rhymes with "pot") used in this tea is a pear shaped citrus fruit, grown primarily around the Mediterranean for the fragrant oil pressed out of the rinds and used in perfumes. The most likely connection is that during the Earl's time, the Greek island of Corfu was the world's leading market for bergamot oil as well as the Mediterranean base for the British Royal Navy. Although the Earl wasn't in the Navy, some of his friends may have introduced him to the oil... or maybe there was a fortunate accident and some of the oil merely leaked on some tea while in transit?

For generations, the tea firms of Twinings and Jacksons have been arguing over which firm was used by the Earl to blend his tea. In a way, the question became superfluous when Twinings bought out Jacksons in 1990. Earl Grey tea remains the most popular blend for Twinings and worldwide consumption (for all producers combined) is estimated at nearly fifteen tons per day. By the way, the current Earl Grey may have lost the ability to control the appellation "Earl Grey Tea" but he is now making some very nice honey products that are also flavored with oil of bergamot.

As may be expected, there are some differences in the various teas called Earl Grey. Some use only natural bergamot oil and some use synthetics. Some are lightly scented and some more heavily so. Most use a China black tea as a base, usually a Keemun. Try Tuppence Tea's "Earl Grey" with cornflowers.

Coffeehouses and "Tea Gardens"

By the 17th century, the "coffeehouse" had been firmly established in England and was a place where a man was safe from his womenfolk (who were forbidden to enter). Although the ladies in their drawing rooms complained loudly about this, in truth no gentlewoman would have wanted to set foot into such places. Being places of commerce as well as refreshment, several well-known institutions had their genesis at such establishments, including the auction firms of Christie’s and Sotheby’s, as well as the insurance company Lloyd’s of London.

The coffeehouse, established for the drinking of one beverage, was nevertheless invaded by another as tea became more and more popular. The less than socially respectable coffeehouse, sometimes called "nurseries of idleness", was still no place for a lady. As a result, the 18th century witnessed the flourishing of another peculiar institution that came to be known as the "tea garden".

Unlike the male-only coffeehouse, the whole idea of the tea garden was for both men and women to take their tea out-of-doors and accompanied by entertainment, including ballrooms, orchestras, racing events and even fireworks at night. Eventually they passed from fashion and disappeared from the scene, but for a time everyone from the royal family on down spent time at the gardens. Many portions of London today still bear their names, including Covent, Vauxhall and Marlybone.

Colonialism and the Dutch East India Company

When most people think of the tea trade, they think of the English. Although the English and many of the other major European companies had trading companies, primarily concerned with the importation of tea, coffee, spices, silk and other goods from Asia back to Europe, the Dutch East India Company was the first and by far the foremost throughout the 1600's.

At the height of its power in 1675 the Company had a fleet of over 150 trading vessels with 20,000 sailors, 40 warships with 10,000 soldiers and additional staffing of 50,000 civilians. These Companies were closely identified with the Colonialism movement, both for the good and the bad, and the Company largely controlled at least eight foreign governments. In spite of this overhead, trade was so profitable that the Company generally could still pay a forty percent annual dividend to its shareholders!

This was the organization that first brought tea to Europe in 1610 – green tea from Japan, to be exact. Within a generation or two, the Dutch had spread tea across most of Europe. Charles II of England got hooked on tea while in exile in the Netherlands. The first tea sold in the New World was also provided by the Dutch.

Ironically, the Dutch East India Company underestimated the actual demand for tea and bought it only through connections in Java, not actually going directly to Canton until 1729. By then, they were too late to challenge England, which had already established direct connections with the Chinese. Perhaps they were influenced by the even stronger coffee drinking clientele, who called tea "hay water." When England forced the Dutch out of the India tea trade in 1759, the Company went downhill rapidly and eventually collapsed into bankruptcy.

Opium and the John Company

As mentioned above, it didn’t take long for the British to see that they were missing out on a lucrative trade, so in 1600 Queen Elizabeth granted a charter for the formation of the British East India Company, more commonly referred to as the "John Company". Over the following years this company, having been granted far-reaching powers, was to play a central role in the formation of the British Empire. The company could acquire territory, coin money, maintain armies, form alliances and even declare war. Although they traded in many goods from the East, tea was soon their most important commodity.

Even though tea became popular during the 17th century, it was in the 18th century that demand exploded. In 1720, the company handled over a million pounds of tea (and generated profits in excess of one million pounds sterling); in 1760, three million pounds of tea and by 1770, over nine million. Meanwhile the Chinese demanded that almost all of their tea sales be paid for in silver, as they believed that the West had nothing else of value to send them. As the quantities of tea increased, so did the requirements for silver until the company began to have difficulty in coming up with the coin, so to speak.

What followed was one of the most creative (if reprehensible) marketing ideas in the history of business. The John Company started selling opium, which they grew in India and sold for silver, and then used that silver to buy tea. Unknown in China until the late 1600's, opium soon was in great demand, but at least the company had its tea!

In 1800 the Chinese Emperor outlawed the importation of opium, but smuggling continued and the Opium War of 1840 to 1842 was the result. China lost that war as well as other conflicts, and was finally forced to legalize opium in 1857. Within the next ten years, opium use soared and the company then supplied over 10,000 cases of opium each year. As a result, the tea trade flourished, with over 50 million pounds imported into England each year by the 1850's.

Why is Porcelain Called "China"?

Simply because it was invented there. (Okay, so this is only loosely related to the tea trade, but we think it's an interesting tale.) This hard, translucent glazed pottery has been around since the Tang Dynasty, over a thousand years ago. When the tea trade began, no one in Europe could make pottery, glazed or not, stand up to the rigors of boiling water. It was not understood how to get kiln temperatures up to the 1400-degree temperature required to vitrify clay and make it this durable. Early Europeans speculated that China was made from powdered egg or lobster shells or perhaps another substance entirely unknown in the West.

China became popular in Europe partly because of its durability but also because it was so very inexpensive. In fact, most China was brought west as ballast for the sailing ships. The higher value items, tea and silk, were both quite sensitive and had to be stored above the water line. China, however, was impervious to water and was packed in by the case below the water line, to give the ship better ride and balance. Some shipping lines even flooded the areas abound the China with fresh water, adding more weight for ballast as well as an additional supply of water should it be needed during the long voyage.

Eventually Europeans came upon the secrets of making China, or porcelain as it was often called and the first factory opened in Germany in the early 18th century. From there the techniques quickly spread across Europe and into England. From the beginning, the production at Worchester, Spode, Limoges and other factories produced items designed for tea consumption as well as general tableware.