TEA

 

See Also: CAFES; CHINESE FOOD; CIGARETTES; COFFEE; COFFEEHOUSES; FORTUNE's BOUNTEA; MUSEUMS The Horniman Museum & Gardens; MUSEUMS, DISAPPEARED & LATENT The Bramah Museum of Tea & Coffee; NAUTICAL The Cutty Sark; TRADING COMPANIES The East India Company

 

Tony Benn

The former Labour government minister Tony Benn is renowned for his copious intake of tea. He has expressed the view that food is 'an interruption between two mugs of tea'. In 1981 he gave the newspapers copy when he was hospitalised with a nervous system condition. The tabloid press decided he had been driven mad by drinking too much of his favourite beverage, his previous general political conduct being taken as the early signs of his supposed condition. As the matter turned out, he had Guillan-Barre syndrome. He recovered from it.

Location: 12 Holland Park Avenue, W11 4UX (purple, red)

St Mary's Hospital, Praed Street, W2 1NY (red, turquoise)

See Also: HOMELESSNESS Dennis Rough; HOSPITALS St Mary's Hospital; THE LONGEST SUICIDE NOTE IN HISTORY; NUCLEAR WEAPONS Lovely Cuppa

 

Winston Churchill

In the 1930s Churchill wanted to establish tea as a crop that could be grown in Britain.

 

Earl Grey

In the 19thC a citric-flavoured tea was named after the 2nd Earl Grey, the Whig prime minister whose reformist administration had ended the East India Company's monopoly of the tea trade in 1834. There is a shroud of uncertainty as to who actually bestowed the designation. It can be regarded as having been something of a backhanded compliment. The bergamot oil that gave the beverage its distinctive taste was employed as a substitute for orange and lemon leaves, which looked like tea when dried. Unscrupulous tea traders had taken to using them to adulterate their stock with in order to bulk it up. Drinkers of the resulting brew had developed a taste for it. Therefore, a variety that had the flavour was created to meet demand.

The Boscawen family have owned the Tregothnan estate in Cornwall since 1335. Evelyn Boscawen is a descendant of the Earls Grey. In 2013 it was reported both that he had been growing tea on the property and that he was planning to export some of it to Shanghai.

Website: www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/charles-grey-2nd-earl-grey https://tregothnan.co.uk

 

Jonas Hanway

The merchant Joseph Hanway (1712-1786) was opposed to tea. He drew a comparison between its growing popularity in Britain and opium consumption in the Ottoman Empire.

Location: 23 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4PS (blue, red)

 

An Ig Nobel Preparation

Sir John Wolfe Barry's achievements included co-designing Tower Bridge (1894). The crossing is a metal structure that has a stone cladding. In 1901 the knight called upon the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers to establish a body to oversee the standardisation of iron and steel sections. The Engineering Standards Committee was set up. Two years later the body registered the British Standard Mark to indicate that an item was up to standard . This symbol became known as the Kitemark®. In 1931 the organisation changed its own name to the British Standards Institution.

The 1999 Ig Nobel prize for literature was awarded to the B.S.I.. This was done to acknowledge a six-page-long document (BS6008) that the Institution had issued upon the 'method for preparation of a liquor of tea'. The same year Len Fisher of the University of Bristol received the physics prize for working out the optimal manner in which to dunk a biscuit into a cup of the beverage.

Location: 389 Chiswick High Road, W4 4AL

See Also: BRIDGES Tower Bridge

Website: www.bsigroup.com www.improbable.com/ig

 

The marquise Bethinks

In the 18thC part of the importance of taking tea lay in the fact that the sequence in which the people present were served indicated their social rank with respect to one another. The marquise de Montandre (d.1772) was the widow of a Huguenot field marshal. She was of the view that her late husband s title entitled her to outrank countesses. However, the fact that her departed spouse's French honour had been attainted by the French crown meant that there was a degree of uncertainty about the issue. On the whole, she sought to carry the matter through an air of haughtiness. However, upon occasion she preferred to avoid pressing it.

Horace Walpole knew of an incident when she and some titled women had been socialising with one another in the townhouse of one of their number. The tea items had been brought into the chamber where they were. Without referring to this development, the marquise had declared that the time had come for her to leave. The countesses present had been served their cups of the beverage. The widow had then declared I have bethought myself, I think I will have one cup.

Location: 69 Brook Street, W1K 4ER. The marquise de Montandre's home. (red, yellow)

See Also: CLASS Precedence

 

Tea Bags

In 1945 the Labour government lowered the price that it was prepared to pay for tea. The tea companies, in order to cut their own margins, started to pack tea directly for the maturing bins. This led to tea drinkers complaining about the amount of dust in the tea that they bought. However, the powder was important for ensuring that the beverage had a good taste. Therefore, the companies sought to find a way of selling tea with the dust but to the public in a form that they would not mind it being in.

Sandy Fowler, an engineer then living in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), with the assistance of his wife Ann, devised the modern tea bag. This proved to be the solution. Mr Fowler did not take out a patent for his invention.

Tommy Cooper

The comedian-magician Tommy Cooper (1921-1984) was of the habit that whenever he took a ride in a taxi he would give the driver 'something for a drink'. He would reach in his wallet and hand over a tea bag.

See Also: TAXIS

 

The Tea Trade

The Dutch had imported tea by 1606. Its first mention in English dates from 1658 when it was advertised as being for sale from The Saracen's Head coffee-house in Sweetings Rents by the Royal Exchange. Up until then it had been known as char.

Catherine of Braganza, who had been raised in Portugal, was a tea drinker. From about 1670 the East India Company started to import tea regularly.

By the mid-19thC Mincing Lane was the centre of the wholesale tea trade. Indian teas grown in Assam then began to arrive in London. Coming from a colony they had the considerable commercial advantage of not having a duty charged upon them. Therefore, Chinese teas were more expensive. This reinforced their cachet.

Until the 1970s tea auctions were held in Plantation House. The trade was undermined by: containerisation; the growth of supermarkets and the decline of independent grocers.

In 1998 the tea auctions stopped. They had been held for 319 years.

Location: 30 Fenchurch Street, EC3M 3BD. The site of Plantation House. (red, brown)

Mincing Lane, EC3R 7AG (red, blue)

See Also: NAUTICAL The Custom House; STREETS, SPECIALISED; WHISKY Blended Whiskies and Wine Merchants

 

Twinings

Daniel Twining was a weaver in Gloucestershire. In the 1680s he concluded that the county's cloth industry was in decline. Therefore, he and his family moved to London. His son Thomas served an apprenticeship with an East India merchant. This left the youth with a knowledge of tea as a commodity.

In about 1706 the younger Twining became the proprietor of Tom's Coffee House in Devereux Court. This was one of London's leading coffeehouses. It drew much of its custom from the lawyers who worked in the nearby Inns of Court. It was noted for the savants and wits whose chose to congregate there. The proprietor drew upon his knowledge of tea to ensure that the establishment developed a fine reputation for serving the beverage. He prospered and went on to establish a business that wholesaled tea and coffee.1

Richard Twining was a grandson of Thomas. The dynasty's growing economic success was testified to by the fact that he was schooled at Eton College. He entered the family business and soon became one of London's principal tea merchants. The action that he is remembered for was his persuading the government to reduce the rate of tax on tea. The American War of Independence - a conflict that had followed on from the Boston Tea Party of 1773 - had involved large military expenditure by the state. This had increased the National Debt. The Treasury needed to find money with which it could service its enlarged financial obligations. Tea smuggling was occurring on a vast scale. Richard convinced William Pitt the younger, the prime minister, that if the duty on the commodity was reduced radically then the economic viability of the illicit trade would be removed and that the tea that was being handled within it would enter its legal counterpart and thus become taxable. The premier used the Commutation Act of 1784 to lower the rate that was levied on the commodity from 100% to 25%. The merchant's evaluation of what would happen soon proved to have been correct. It was no longer worth the smugglers while to handle tea. As a result, the overall revenue from the duty increased.

Location: 216 Strand, WC2R 1AP (red, red)

See Also: PERIOD PROPERTIES Period Shops

Website: https://twinings.co.uk https://twinings.co.uk/pages/twinings-flagship-store=216-strand

1. Thomas Twining honoured his father by becoming a member of the Weavers Company.

 

White

During the 19thC various members of the Rothschild family had townhouses to the north of the western portion of Piccadilly. One visitor to the Seamore Place home of Alfred de Rothschild asked a servant if some milk could be added to his tea. The reply came as to whether he would prefer his milk to be from a Hereford, a Jersey, or a Shorthorn.

The Astors were given to taking a cow with them on holiday to ensure that they had a supply of milk.

Location: Curzon Street, W1J 5HQ. No 1 Seamore Place disappeared beneath a westward expansion of Curzon Street.

See Also: THE ROYAL PARKS Green Park, Milkmaids Passage

 

Why Did Karl Marx Hate Good Tea?

Because all proper tea is theft.

 

Yorkshire Tea

The Yorkshire Tea brand was created for Taylors of Harrogate by Warren Ford (1933-2023), a Londoner, who was a tea consultant.

David Backhouse 2024