That is a picture of five-hundred years of history. A thousand years of history and the identity of a nation are packed into those simple ingredients of sugar, a tea bag, and a splash of milk. And since this is a thread about tea, nobody can stop me telling you about why that isn't coffee. When Britain was a land of Brythonic tribes who worked as mercenaries for European countries who were at war with the Roman Empire (and to the Romans was a far-off land across a sea of monsters, occupied by brutish barbarians who loved fighting), Chinese emperors were getting buried with containers that housed tea leaves some time after a Chinese herbalist discovered that the leaves made water taste nice. In 760 AD Britain had been invaded by the Romans, abandoned and left to fend itself, and was in the midst of being invaded by Germanic tribes from the area now known as the Netherlands, when Lu Yu, a former circus clown, wrote the Cha'a Ching - a book that established tea lore (telling people its mythological origins, how to prepare it, etc.) and cemented drinking tea as an important ritual in Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Thanks to Lu Yu, the practice tea drinking finally made its way to the islands that would eventually amalgamate into Japan. The seeds of the coffee tree were first roasted and brewed into what we now call 'coffee' in Yemen in the mid-1400s, possibly having been discovered first by Ethiopians (I say 'possibly' - the seeds the Yemenis used definitely came from Ethiopia, the Ethiopians just didn't keep a record of what they'd done before they started selling their creation). By 1600, the beverage had spread as far as Indonesia and was now a notable beverage in the Ottoman Empire, who introduced it to the Venetians, who then brought it back home to Italy. That same year, the British East India Company was founded and sent Indonesian coffee to England when they traded with the Dutch East India Company. Coffee was initially popular with the English, but it drastically declined in popularity in 1765 when the Thirteen Colonies - the Kingdom of Great Britain's #1 coffee source - declared independence from the British Empire. We all know how that escapade ended up - Great Britain didn't get her back, and its source of coffee was gone. But there was a backup option. And why wouldn't there be? Coffee was popular with continental Europeans, and obviously Britain needed something to prove how non-European they really are. In 1615, around the same time coffee was making headway in England, Mr. R. Wickham - an agent working on behalf of the British East India company - was doing diplomatic work for the Kingdom of England in Japan. In Japan he had tried tea, and enjoyed it so much he tracked down where it had came, discovering it was a Chinese import, and ordered a cup of the 'best chaw' (a mishearing of the Cantonese word 'chàh') China had to offer. Peter Mundy, an English merchant, documented his experience tasting tea in 1637 while he was in China's Fujian province. By 1660, tea - more specifically green tea - had started appearing in London's coffeehouses, but was six times more expensive than coffee and was thus only afforded by female English aristocrats, who sought to imitate Catherine de Braganza, a Portuguese princess who married England (and Scotland's) King Charles II... who was also a woman who really liked tea. By 1706, Thomas Twining had opened England's first ever tea shop and, in 1766 (a year after the American Revolution broke out), Great Britain was importing almost three million kilograms of tea from the Netherlands a year. Tea-drinking became seen as a patriotic duty, and you were expected to drink tea in almost ritualistic way to bring your family together and display how much you loved your country - but due to its rarity, only the upper classes could afford it and were the only true patriots. Following the loss of the Thirteen Colonies, Great Britain turned its attention to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, where black tea was easily cultivated but coffee was not, and the British East India Company started 'trading' directly with China (read: flooding the Chinese market with opium so China got an opiate crisis 200 years early and got annoyed, attacked us, lost the ensuing war catastrophically and was forced to give up Hong Kong and their monopoly on tea) and cut out the Dutch middleman. The price of tea began to drop drastically and, suddenly, it was not a status symbol - the working classes were able to get their hands on it because it was so cheap. It replaced buttered beer (beer with butter and a bunch of spices melted into it) as the main beverage in the British diet. It was affordable; paired well with the working class diet of hard, dry bread and cheese; offered more hydration than beer; its warmth was a welcoming feeling in Britain's cold climate; and, perhaps most importantly, the link between boiled tea and not catching cholera and dysentery like you did with cold water was noted. Tea and sugar also proved to be useful stimulants during the sixteen hours of manual work you had to do. It was the perfect drink for the working man. Unfortunately, the working man still could not afford porcelain cups that didn't shatter into pieces when filled with hot water. The working man applied a bit of ingenuity and added a splash of cold milk into his cups before he added the hot water. "But Soul, that isn't an issue anymore... why do you still drink tea like that?" you may be asking. Like most things in the United Kingdom, it all boils down to the working class and the upper class hating each other and wanting to distinguish themselves from one another and viewing one another as sub-human. Milk in tea became a symbol of being working class and became the way to drink your tea if you are poor, while the upper classes view milk in tea as disgusting and vulgar and an affront to their own tea-drinking customs (which are still viewed by them as the only true patriotic ways to drink your tea). Both are united by one thing: if you're not offered tea the moment you step into someone else's house, the homeowner is a rude psychopath and you need to leave as soon as possible. And there you have it. From brutish tribes who scoured the European continent looking for a fight with Romans for fun, to becoming a nation who drink tea for fun and get offended when someone doesn't offer you a mug of it.
Interesting, thanks. In the second to last paragraph, where does the cold water suddenly disappear to and where does the milk suddenly appear from? And very interesting how something as small as "giving tea to visitors" has such a significant importance in the British (?) culture. Oh, and just to clarify, I didn't think it was coffee, it just looks like it to me (which has certain side affects as well).
Ah, now it makes more sense. Why did they splash it with milk instead of just cold water? Did that also have to do with the catching of cholera and dysentry?
tbh I'm not actually sure, but I'd imagine it was because it made it less bitter (part of why we drink it like that today) and cold water would take away some of the taste, but also for a lot of people it was the only thing they'd get to eat that day so they added a bit of extra protein and calcium into it as a bonus
Protip: leave the tea(bag) in for less long. That sounds like a bit of a contradiction to me, to be honest.
That's what I thought too, but I figured it was because they added milk to it, and the article seemed to suggest that is indeed the case. Cool post!
I didn't know this, but I just watched a 1947 report on it. Interesting! (I suppose the manufacturing process might be slightly outdated, but it's the same product, I assume)
Due to a highly elevated blood pressure I have put a hold on drinking caffeinated tea. I do miss my PG Tips but I'm feeling better. My favorite hot water beverage now is Twinings Orange & Cinnamon Spice with a spoonful of honey.
I still drink green tea mixed with chamomile tea every day. I also have a friend that likes chai tea and I have some when he makes a bunch of it.
I prefer Earl grey tea to quench a thirst, I'll take packets of those all the time when skiing especially to re-hydrate, water is extremely difficult for me to drink alone so I usually need something else with it. For nausea, my go-to is chamomile all the time.
