By Arlene W

the demand for tea rose steadily. Rather than harvest leaves from wild trees, farmers began to develop ways to cultivate tea. Tea was commonly made into roasted cakes, which were then pounded into small pieces and placed in a china pot. After adding boiling water, onion, spices, ginger or orange were introduced to produce many regional variations. Many traders in 479 bartered for tea along the Mongolian border. In 780 Poet Lu Yu, wrote the first book of tea, making him a living saint, patronized by the Emperor himself. The book described methods of cultivation and preparation.

Between 618-906 T'ang Dynasty, powdered Tea became the fashion of the time. Nobility made it a popular pastime. Caravans carried tea on the Silk Road, trading with India, Turkey and Russia. Later on in 805 tea was introduced to Japan as a medicine. The Buddhist bonze (priest) Saicho, 38, has spent 3 years visiting Chinese Buddhist temples on orders from the emperor, and he returned with tea.

According to history in 1191 Zen Buddhism was introduced to Japan by the priest Aeisai, 50, who returned from a visit to China. Aeisai planted tea seeds on the grounds of his temple, making medicinal claims for tea that were published in 1214. Eisai experimented with different ways to brew tea, finally adopting the Chinese whisked tea.

From 1206 to 1368, which is the Yuan Dynasty, Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan conquered Chinese territories and established a Mongolian dynasty in power for more than a century. Tea became an ordinary drink, never regaining the high status it once enjoyed. Marco Polo was not even introduced to tea when he visited.

Finally in 1484 the tea ceremony was introduced by Japan's Yoshimasa. Now 48, the shogun had encouraged painting and drama, his reign had otherwise been disastrous, but the tea ceremony was to remain for centuries a cherished part of Japanese culture.

In 1591 Japanese teamaster Rikyu Sen commited ritual suicide (seppuku) on orders from Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Sen was the person who formalized the tea ceremony. Also history tells us that The Japanese tea ceremony was created by a Zen priest named Murata Shuko, who had devoted his life to tea. The ceremony is called Cha No Yu, which means "hot water for tea."

Finally in 1597, the first English mention of tea appeared in a translation of Dutch navigator Jan Hugo van Lin-Schooten's Travels. Van Lin-Schooten called the beverage chaa. In 1610 The Dutch brought tea to Europe from China, trading dried sage in exchange. By 1657 the public sale of tea began at London as the East India Company undercuts Dutch prices and advertised tea as a panacea for apoplexy, catarrh, colic, consumption, drowsiness, epilepsy, gallstones, lethargy, migraine, paralysis, and vertigo. Also in 1657, tea was offered to Londoners at Thomas Garraway's coffee house in Exchange Alley between Cornhill and Lombard streets.

In 1658 the London periodical Mercurious Politicus carries an advertisement: "That excellent and by all Physitians approved China Drink called by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations Tay, alias Tea, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a cophee-house in Sweeti Rents." Catherine da Braganza introduces to the London court the Lisbon fashion of drinking tea in 1662. She also introduces the Chinese orange.

In 1665, England imported less than 88 tons of sugar, a figure that would grow to 10,000 tons by the end of the century as tea consumption (encouraged by cheap sugar) increased in popularity.

Inflation even prevailed in 1668 when tea sold on the Continent for less than 1 shilling per lb, but an import duty of 5 shillings per lb made tea too costly for most Englishmen and encouraged widespread smuggling. The English consume more smuggled tea than was brought in by orthodox routes.

In 1708 the United East India Company was created by a merger of Britain's two rival East India companies. They became the strongest European power on the coasts of India. The company shipped China tea as well as other goods and it paid regular dividends of 8 to 10 percent.

The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope in 1712, is a mock-heroic poem describing a day at Hampton Court where Queen Anne does "sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea".

Robert Walpole reduced British duties on tea in 1723.

In 1767, The Townshend Revenue Act passed by Parliament June 29 imposes duties on tea, glass, paint, oil, lead, and paper imported into Britain's American colonies in hopes of raising £40,000 per year. Life goes on in the colonies and in the same year a town meeting was held at Boston to protest the Townshend Act adopts a non-importation agreement. Meanwhile by 1768, the East India Company imports 10 million pounds of tea per year into England. Back in the colonies, in 1770 the Boston Massacre March 5 leaves three dead, two mortally wounded, and six injured following a disturbance between colonists and British troops. Finally in 1770 Parliament repeals the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 in a bill passed April 12. Prime Minister North has used his influence to have the act repealed. However, in 1773 tea is left to rot on the docks at Charleston. New York and Philadelphia send tea-laden ships back to England, but men of "sense and property" such as George Washington deplore the Boston Tea Party. That same year, the Boston Tea Party December 16 demonstrates against the new English tea orders. Led by Lendall Pitts, scion of a Boston merchant family, a group of men, including silversmith Paul Revere, 38, disguise themselves as Mohawks and the Boston Tea Party Group board East India Company ships at Griffen's Wharf, and throws 342 chests of tea (valued at more than £9,650) from the London firm of Davison and Newman into Boston Harbor.

Agitator Samuel Adams has organized the Boston Tea Party action with support from John Hancock, whose smuggling of contraband tea has been made unprofitable by the new measures. The Tea Act passed by Parliament May 10 lightens duties on tea imported into Britain to give relief to the East India Company which has 7 years' supply in warehouses on the Thames and is being strained by storage charges.

The Tea Act permits tea to be shipped at full duty to the American colonies and to be sold directly to retailers, eliminating colonial middlemen and undercutting their prices. That same year, "Two Letters on the Tea Tax" by John Dickinson are published in November.

The British ship London docks at N.Y. April 22, 1774, and the Sons of Liberty prepare to follow the example set at Boston 4 months earlier. While they are making themselves up as Mohawks an impatient crowd boards the vessel and heaves the tea into the Harbor. Not to be outdone, Colonists at York, Maine, and Annapolis, Maryland, conduct tea parties like the one at Boston. News of last year's Boston Tea Party reaches London January via John Hancock's ship Hayley. Parliament passes coercive acts to bring the colonists to heel.

George III gives assent March 31,1774 to the Boston Port Bill and Boston Harbor is closed June 1 until the East India Company shall have been reimbursed for its tea and British authorities feel that trade can be resumed and duties collected.

English sugar consumption reaches 12 pounds per year per capita, by 1780 up from 4 in 1700, as Britons increased their coffee and tea consumption. Finally in 1784 Parliament further lowered British import duties on tea. The lower duties end the smuggling that has accounted for so much of the nation's tea imports and hurt the East India Company as the rewards become too small to justify the risks.

In 1776 England sent the first opium to China. Opium addiction in China funded the escalating demand for tea in England. Cash trade for the drug increased until the opium wars began in 1839.

Boston merchants in 1790 start a triangular trade with clothing, copper, and iron to the Columbia River to be bargained for furs. The sea captains sell the cargoes at Canton and return round the Cape of Good Hope with Chinese porcelains, teas, and tiles.

By 1797, English tea consumption reached an annual rate of 2 pounds per capita, a figure that would increase fivefold in the next century.

In 1820, "Adulteration of Foods and Culinary Poisons" by English chemistry professor Frederick Accum enrages the vested interests. The book shows among other things that counterfeit China tea is made from dried thorn leaves colored with poisonous verdigris.

Acting for the British government, in 1823, Charles Bruce smuggles knowledgeable coolies out of China and puts them to work transplanting young tea bushes into nursery beds to begin tea plantations.

By 1824, Cadbury's Chocolate has its beginnings in a tea and coffee shop opened by Birmingham, England, Quaker John Cadbury, 23, who has served an apprenticeship at Leeds and for bonded London tea houses. He employs a Chinese to preside over his tea counter. The Royal Navy, in 1824, reduces its daily rum ration from half a pint to a quarter pint, and tea becomes part of the daily ration. In 1825 British colonists in Ceylon plant coffee bushes.

The first tea to be retailed in sealed packages was in 1826, under a proprietary name is introduced by English Quaker John Horniman whose sealed, lead-lined packages were designed in part to protect his tea from adulteration.

Mormonism is founded by Joseph Smith in 1830. Their "Word of Wisdom" is a code of health prohibiting tea, coffee, alcohol, and tobacco. Also, that year, Congress reduces U.S. duties on coffee, tea, salt, and molasses imports. By 1831, Boston's S. S. Pierce Co. has its beginnings in a shop opened to sell "choice teas and foreign fruits" by local merchant Samuel Stillman Pierce.

Frances Trollope, in 1832, deplored American eating habits. Suppers, she reports, are huge buffets that may include "tea, coffee, hot cake and custard, hoe cake, johnny cake, waffle cake, and dodger cake, pickled peaches, and preserved cucumbers, ..."

The East India Company , in 1833, loses its prized monopoly in the China trade (most of it in tea) by an act of the British prime minister Charles Grey, 69, second Earl Grey.

In 1837, Major Samuel Shaw bartered the cargo for $30,000 worth of tea and silk, the investors received a 25 percent return on their capital, Shaw became the first U.S. consul at Canton, and more Americans were encouraged to enter the China trade.

Some 95 chests of Assam tea arrive at London in 1839 and were sold at auction. Unlike green China tea, the leaves from India are fermented and the new black tea, less astringent than green tea, began to gain popularity. The house Kingscote - built 1839 - on Bellevue Avenue was later acquired by William Henry King with money acquired in the tea trade and Newport becomes a favorite summer resort for the rich.

Afternoon tea is introduced by Anna, the duchess of Bedford in 1840. The tea interval would become a lasting British tradition, but the English still drank more coffee than tea.

The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, in 1844, the first modern cooperative society, opened a store in Toad Lane. Flour, oatmeal, butter, and sugar were its only initial wares but the store soon added tea and groceries.

Parliament abolishes Britain's Navigation Acts June 26, 1849 ended restrictions on foreign shipping. U.S. clipper ships were finally permitted to bring cargoes of China tea to British ports. Harrods had its beginnings in a London grocery shop at 8 Brompton Road in 1849 and that had been run by Philip Henry Burden. Tea wholesaler Henry Charles Harrod, 49, of Eastcheap took over the shop that would grow to become one of the world's largest department stores. The last time I was in London, I was totally amazed at the vastness of this store and one can still get the best teas there, plus anything else one would want.

Finally by 1850 tea catches up with coffee in popularity among the English and that same year, the first U.S. clipper ship to be seen at London arrived from Hong Kong after a 97-day voyage. The Oriental carried a 1,600-ton cargo of China tea and her $48,000 cargo fee nearly covered the cost of her construction. British shipbuilders were inspired to copy the Oriental's lines but were handicapped by English rules of taxation that consider length and beam in measuring tonnage while leaving depth untaxed. This resulted in short deep ships built at Aberdeen and on the Clyde. While they do not approach the speed of the U.S. clipper ships, which soon abandon the China trade for the more profitable business of transporting gold seekers to California.

The London Great Exhibition in 1851 forbad the sale of wine, spirits, beer, and other intoxicating beverages but permitted tea, coffee, chocolate, cocoa, lemonade, ices, ginger-beer, and soda water.

In 1855, a Report of the Analytical Sanitary Commission of `The Lancet' was published at London. A. H. Hassall reported that all but the most costly food and tea contain trace amounts of arcenic, copper, lead or mercury.

Does anyone remember the old A&P stores? The A&P retail food chain has its beginnings in the Great American Tea Co. store opened at 31 Vesey Street, N.Y. in 1859, by local merchant George Huntington Hartford, 26, who has persuaded his employer George P. Gilman to give up his hide and leather business. Hartford and Gilman buy whole clipper ship cargoes in New York harbor, and proceed to sell the tea at less than 1/3 the price charged by other merchants. Their store was identified with flaked gold letters on a Chinese vermilion background, and thus the start of what would grow into A&P.

U.S. tariffs rise as Congress passes the first of three Morrill Acts which will boost tariffs to an average of 47 percent. Duties on tea, coffee, and sugar are increased as a war measure in 1861.

The Great American Tea Co. founded in 1859 grows to have six stores and begins selling a line of groceries in addition to tea by 1863. By 1866, more than 90 percent of Britain's tea still comes from China. Also in 1866, the Great Tea Race from Foochow to London pitted 11 clipper ships who raced to minimize spoilage of the China tea in their hot holds. The skippers crowded on sail but the voyage still took close to 3 months. 1869 The Suez Canal opened in 1869, it made the trip to China shorter and more economical by steamship.

The A&P, in 1869 got its name as the 10-year-old Great American Tea Company is renamed the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company to capitalize on the national excitement about the new transcontinental rail link. That same year, the coffee rust Hamileia vastatrix appeared in Ceylon plantations and would spread throughout the Orient and the Pacific in the next two decades. It would destroy the coffee-growing industry, and soaring coffee prices will lead to wide-scale tea consumption. The English clipper ship Cutty Sark sailed for Shanghai, that year, to begin a 117-day voyage with 28 crewmen to handle the 10 miles of rigging that controled her 32,000 square feet of canvas. She was built for the tea trade.

In 1870 Twinings of England began to blend tea for consistency heading us towards the tea we know today.

Huntington Hartford of the A&P, in 1871, sent emergency rail shipments of tea and coffee to Chicago, most of whose grocery stores have burnt in the great October fire. When the city is rebuilt, Hartford opened A&P stores.

Finally in 1872, a strict Adulteration of Food, Drink and Drugs Act amends Britain's 1860 pure food laws, making sale of adulterated drugs punishable and making it an offense to sell a mixture containing ingredients added to increase weight without advising the customer. By 1875 a new British Sale of Food and Drugs Law tightened restrictions against adulteration, making any adulteration injurious to health punishable with a heavy fine and making a second offence punishable with imprisonment.

Glasgow grocer Thomas Johnstone Lipton opens his first shop at age 26 in 1876. Lipton sailed to America at age 15 to spend 4 years learning the merchandising methods employed in the grocery section of a New York department store.

Frank Hadow, 23, returns to England in 1878 on leave from his Ceylon tea plantation and wins in Wimbledon singles play. In the world of art, "The Cup of Tea" is painted by Mary Cassatt in 1879.

By 1880, more than 95 A&P grocery stores are scattered across America from Boston to Milwaukee; the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. will not have a store on the West Coast for another 50 years.

In 1884 Ceylon's coffee output falls to 150,000 bags, down from 700,000 in 1870 when the rust disease caused by Hamileia vastatrix began making deep inroads. The last shipment of coffee beans will leave the island in 1899. At this time rust finishes off Ceylon's coffee industry. Demand increases for Latin American coffee.

Thomas Lipton, in 1890 entered the tea business to assure supplies of tea at low cost for his 300 grocery shops. He offered "The Finest the World Can Produce" at 1d 7p lb. when the going price is roughly a shilling higher. By 1893 Thomas Lipton registered a new trademark for the tea he had been selling since 1890 and which was sold only in packages. Over the facsimile signature "Thomas J. Lipton, Tea Planter, Ceylon," Lipton prints the words "Nongenuine without this signature".

In 1897 Britons begin to eat lunch, dooming the classic British breakfast and by 1898 annual British tea consumption averages 10 pounds per capita, up from 2 pounds in 1797.

Congress, in 1898 imposed the first U.S. federal tax on legacies June 13 in a War Revenue Act that also provided for excise duties and taxes on tea, tobacco, liquor, and amusements.

English tea magnate Thomas Lipton, in 1899, had the racing yacht Shamrock I built for the first of five efforts he would make to regain the America's Cup, but the U.S. defender Columbia defeated Lipton's boat 3 to 0. By 1900 Trans-Siberian railroad made transport to Russia cheaper and faster. Java became an important producer as well.

In 1902 Barnum's Animal Crackers were introduced by the National Biscuit Co., which controlled 70 percent of U.S. cracker and cookie output. It joined the line of Nabisco products that included Social Tea Biscuits.

Tea bags are pioneered by New York tea and coffee shop merchant Thomas Sullivan in 1904 who sent samples of his various tea blends to customers in small hand-sewn muslin bags. Finding that they can brew tea simply by pouring boiling water over a tea bag in a cup, customers place hundreds of orders for Sullivan's tea bags, which would soon be packed by a specially developed machine. Originally, when Thomas Sullivan invented tea bags in New York, he sent tea to clients in silk bags which they began to mistakenly steep without opening.

By 1904, Green tea and Formosan continued to outsell black tea five to one in the United States. That same year, iced tea was created at the St. Louis fair by English tea concessionaire Richard Blechynden when sweltering fairgoers passed him by, but as in the case of the ice cream cone, evidence will be produced of prior invention.

In 1910 Sumatra, Indonesia grows and exports tea. Soon thereafter, tea is grown in Kenya and other parts of Africa.

Thomas Lipton begins blending and packaging his tea at New York in 1909. His U.S. business would be incorporated in 1915, and 3 years after his death in 1931 his picture would begin appearing on the red-and-yellow packages that identify Lipton products.

A new Filene's with a 7-foot doorman opened in Boston September 3, 1912 at the corner of Washington and Summer streets in a building designed by Daniel Burnham. Edward Filene would hold free tea dances.

History tells us that in 1913, Swann's Way (Du Côte de chez Swann) is written by French novelist Marcel Proust, 42, whose memories of childhood had been revived by tasting shell-shaped madeleine cakes dipped in tea and who would follow his psychological novel with six more.

In 1918 British food rationing began with sugar January 1 and was extended in February to include meat, butter, and margarine. Other rationed commodities include 4 ounces of jam and 2 ounces of tea (weekly).

The song "Tea for Two" is written by Vincent Youmans in 1924 and in 1925, the revue "On with the Dance" was first set up on April 30 at London's Pavillion Theatre. It included the song "Tea for Two" and would run for 229 performances. Of course one might remember the oldie written in 1931, "When I Take My Sugar to Tea" by Sammy Fain . Tea continued to invade the arts, when in 1947 "Tea with Mrs. Goodman" by English novelist Philip Toynbee, 31 was published. “Tea” marches on when in 1952, the film: Yasujiro Ozu's The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice.

Those of us remember 1953 was when White Rose Redi-Tea, introduced by New York's Seeman Brothers, is the world's first instant iced tea. Again tea came back to the arts in 1953 with the play "Tea and Sympathy" by Robert Anderson . The play was first set up at September 30 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Deborah Kerr and John Kerr. It ran for 712 performances. Also in 1953, the play "The Teahouse of the August Moon" by John Patrick was first set up on October 15 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with John Forsythe and David Wayne. It ran for 1,027 performances.

In 1970 The Taiwanese government encouraged its population to drink tea, revitalizing tea culture on the island.

Everyone has their own idea of how to make the correct pot or cup of tea. Yet to get the proper flavor of tea, the water has to be boiling (not boiled) when it hits the tea leaves. If it's merely hot then the tea will be insipid. That's why different cultures have these odd rituals, such as warming the teapot first (so as not to cause the boiling water to cool down too fast as it hits the pot). The British think that the American habit of bringing a teacup, a tea bag and a pot of hot water to the table is merely the perfect way of making a thin, pale, watery cup of tea that nobody in their right mind would want to drink.

To this day many Americans are all mystified about why the English make such a big thing out of tea because most Americans have never had a good cup of tea and the British are correct. While traveling throughout the British Isles, we enjoyed the most wonderful tea several times a day. I think most Americans are too rushed for time to make a good pot of tea.

Use good water. We use bottled water as I can personally taste the chlorine in our city water. Start with cold water and boil up a kettle full of water. Do not boil it away. Just get it to the boil. That is why a whistling tea kettle is so great. Water temperature is also important for tea taste. Most quality green teas prefer water that is hot but not boiling (80-90 deg C, or 170-190 deg F). Black and herbal teas can take water at full boil.

I know it is easier to grab a tea bag and “nuke” a cup of water than it is to do it properly. Plus most times the drinker of a cup of tea is usually alone and making a pot of tea for one person seems a waste.

However, there is real pleasure in taking the time to make a pot of tea. To make it from tea leaves instead of bags is your personal choice, but I rather make it with leaves. To possess a good tea pot and thin cups and saucers instead of a mug brings a whole different essence to making and drinking tea. Buying good tea is important. A tea cozy is also tremendously important. It keeps the tea warm. Plus it looks nice. The whole ritual makes time slow down and makes me slow down. I love the silver tea strainer and its stand. I love knowing that the tea must steep for at least 2-5 minutes, depending on the type of tea and I must wait.

I love all those crazy gadgets used for loose tea. The tea ball, or the little houses or miniature teapots on chains that dangle in the tea pot! How about the double spoon sieve that clicks open when you squeeze the handle? I love to use all these things especially when I brew my chocolate mint tea that I have grown, harvested and dried myself. I love the aroma of it before it goes into the tea pot and how the aroma changes once the water hits it. Then the aroma changes again, after it has steeped and is poured into my cup. There is a tremendous feeling of well being just sitting there with two hands wrapped around a fine tea cup or even a mug for that matter. This is the time to savor not only the tea, but life! I love to inhale the aroma of the tea just before that first sip!