Tea

Origins

Introduction to Europe

Tea trading

Introduction of tea to the UK

• The first arrival of crates containing tea in 1653 by apothecaries, sold for medicinal purposes

• Numerous Asian legends about appearance of the tea plant

(Chinese, Japan, Indian)

• 2737 years BC

• chaa

• A punitive system of taxation led to smuggling and adulteration

• The increased cultivation of tea in India and Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon)

• became firmly established as part of the British way of life

• the London Tea Auction

• The Portuguese discovered China and Japan

• The importation of tea by the Portuguese from Japan started in 1543

The roots of the Nation of tea drinkers

Modern tea drinking

• the British East India Company's first order

• marriage between King Charles II of England and Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza in 1662

• a fashionable beverage at court, and then among the wealthy classes

• The revolutionary tea bags

• British leading tea brands

• Part of the British culture

• still too expensive to be widespread among the working classes

due to a punitive system of taxation

History of British Tea