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Tea Enlightenment

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drinking tea at aimee provence
Astonishingly costly

Tea was once very costly and was kept in the parlour of English homes in a locked tea chest. Only the lady of the house kept the key.

English Breakfast

Despite the name English Breakfast, England does not grow tea. The ever popular English Breakfast tea is actually a blend of tea leaves from various tea growing regions, such as Assam, Ceylon, and Kenya. Up until very recently, all teas were imported into the British Isles. But, modern farmers are attempting to change this now!

  • Tea drinking in England dates back to 1662 when it was introduced at court by Portuguese Infanta Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II.  Her dowry included chests of tea from the regions of Bombay and Tangier.
  • A cup of black tea has half the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee.
  • Tea bags were invented in 1908 in the United States by Thomas Sullivan. Back in the 1980s, Prince Charles was taken by surprise when President Regan’s butler served him tea with the tea bag still in the cup. The Prince had no idea what to do with the tea bag.
  • It takes around 2,000 tiny leaves to make just one pound of finished tea.
  • There are 4 major tea types – black, green, white and oolong.  They all originate from one plant ‘Camellia sinensis’.  The variance occurs by the way the leaves are treated.
  • The art of reading tea leaves is called ‘tasseography’
  • The legend of tea came about with the rule of the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in 2737 BC.  Apparently, a tea leaf is said to have fallen into his cup of hot water and …..the rest is history.
  • Tea was only used medicinally for centuries.  It has only been in the past 300 years and to date that we have begun to enjoy tea as an everyday ritual.
  • Tea originally arrived in Canada in 1716, imported by the Hudson Bay Company, but it took over a year for it to arrive.
  • Russia first received tea when Czar Alexis was gifted tea by the Chinese embassy in Moscow, way back in the 1600s.
  • Tea was once very costly and was kept in the parlour of English homes in a locked tea chest.  Only the lady of the house kept the key.
  • In Ancient China tea was a form of currency with tea leaves being pressed into a brick shape.  One side is scored so it could easily be broken if required.
  • English tea gardens were the first public gathering place in the United Kingdom where women and men could mix without scandal or condemnation. 
  • A recipe for ice tea can be located in the publication ‘Housekeeping in Old Virginia’ by Marion Cabell Tyree dating back to 1877. However, ice tea gained more momentum at the 1904 St Louis World Fair, when an Englishman named Richard Blechynden poured tea over ice on a hot sizzling day.  It was an instant success.
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