Early gifts from China
THE FIRST tea is thought to have been shipped to Britain as gifts by seamen working for the East India Company, which had a monopoly on importing goods from outside Europe.
In 1658 – more than a decade after the date on the newly discovered note in Leeds – an advert appeared in a London newspaper announcing that “China Drink, called by the Chinese, Tcha, by other nations Tay alias Tee”, was on sale at a coffee house.
Shortly afterwards, the marriage of Charles II to Catherine of Braganza, a teadrinking Portuguese princess, made the beverage fashionable – prompting the East India Company to begin official imports of tea to Britain. The first order, in 1664, was for 100lbs of China tea from Java.