History of tea...

THE history of tea was the subject of the March meeting of Sutton Bonington Local History Society and it was admirably covered by Sandy Leong.

Legend has it that the use of tea as a drink was discovered when some leaves blew into a cup of hot water during the preparation of a drink for the Emperor. This is probably not true but it makes a good story and many things have been discovered by accident.

Both the drink and the tea plant originated in China and tea comes in black, green and white forms. In Japan they have raised the serving of tea into an art form.

In Britain it became something more than a beverage, it became a commodity to be traded, taxed and it is even claimed it oiled the wheels of the Enlightenment, in that it was drunk in coffee houses where business men gathered to do business and exchange ideas.

The trade in tea was, for some time, a monopoly in the hands of the East India Company. This ensured that prices stayed high and as a consequence tea was largely enjoyed by the wealth minority.

It was also heavily taxed this limited its appeal and also upset the American colonies. It was one of the factors in sparking the American war of independence.

The way tea was taxed in Britain, by the brew, encouraged coffee shops to brew enough tea for the day and keep it stewing in barrels. This minimised the tax but by modern tastes produced a rather disgusting drink. The tax on tea reached 119 per cent in the mid 18th century but in 1784 the Prime Minister, Pitt, slashed the tax and the smuggling of tea, which up to that point had been rife , stopped overnight.

The trade in tea produced another bad practise. The Chinese were not very interested in western goods this made trade difficult, until their weakness for drugs was discovered and tea was exchanged for opium.

Tea became more readily available, especially after the secrets of growing tea were transferred to India and the monopolies of both the Chinese and the East India Company were broken.

Afternoon tea became fashionable in the 19th century, in 1884 the first Lyons Corner House was established, and in 1908 the first tea bag was produced. This was another accident, a tea merchant in New York sent samples out in little silk bags. His customers thought that they were for dipping into the water, which they did, and the tea bag was invented .

The next meeting of the society is on Wednesday, April 11, 7.30pm at the Methodist School Rooms , Main St. Sutton Bonington.

The speaker will be Rachel Blackshaw and the topic is “The Sutton Bonington 1911 Census”.

This is based on research done by the Loughborough Library Local Studies Group.

If you live in Sutton Bonington come along and see if you can find out who was living in your house in 1911, assuming it was built at that time. Otherwise all welcome.