The history of tea goes back at least two thousand years with many myths and legends about the origins of tea steeped into storytelling. One of the best-known legends about its origin dates back to 2737 BC when it is said Chinese Emperor Shen Nung accidentally discovered the drink when leaves from a nearby tree fell into a pot of boiling water during a picnic. However, the first real evidence of tea drinking comes from China's Yunnan province in 350 CE. Over the centuries that followed, China developed different methods for cultivating tea and developed different types: green, black and white. Tea became China’s national drink and by first millennium, the Chinese Tea house had become a focal point of Chinese social life.
1606. Tea arrives in Europe
Tea was introduced to Europe when the Dutch established their trading port on the island of Java, Indonesia, and sent their first cargo of tea, by sea, to Amsterdam in 1606. Tea quickly became popular amongst the upper classes, including in Portugal, where Catharine of Braganza grew up. When she married Charles II in 1662, Catherine’s father, King John IV of Portugal, provided a dowry of luxury goods, including a chest of tea, which had become the favourite drink at the Portuguese Royal Court. Following Catherine’s arrival, it wasn’t long before tea became fashionable in the drawing rooms of the wealthier classes and court of England. As well as the chest of tea her sizeable dowry was the Portuguese colony of ‘Bom Bahia’ (Mumbai) on the western coast of India. King Charles II agreed to transfer control of Mumbai to the East India Company and it soon became its base.
1664. The East India Company
Before 1600 Portugal controlled most European trade with India and the Far East, an area known then as the Indies, but in 1600 Queen Elizabeth I gave a Royal Charter to a new trading company, the East India Company (EIC), giving it a monopoly over all British trade with the Indies and therefore the only company licensed to sell goods, such as tea, into Britain. The EIC weathered various political storms and when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, the Company ingratiated itself with the King, who extended its privileges to allow the Company to take military action to establish itself in places where it wished to trade. In 1664 the EIC placed its first order for tea - for 100lbs of China tea to be shipped from Java for import into Britain.
The Company was powerful overseas too, becoming an agent of British imperialism in South Asia and the de facto colonial ruler of large parts of India, where it used its private army to control several states and principalities. It maintained high prices and charged its tax collectors with extracting as much revenue from the local population as possible.
It was gradually deprived of its commercial monopoly and political control following the Indian Uprising in 1857 and was formally dissolved in 1874.
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Dinesh said:
The history of tea goes back at least two thousand years with many myths and legends about the origins of tea steeped into storytelling. One of the best-known legends about its origin dates back to 2737 BC when it is said Chinese Emperor Shen Nung accidentally discovered the drink when leaves from a nearby tree fell into a pot of boiling water during a picnic. However, the first real evidence of tea drinking comes from China's Yunnan province in 350 CE. Over the centuries that followed, China developed different methods for cultivating tea and developed different types: green, black and white. Tea became China’s national drink and by first millennium, the Chinese Tea house had become a focal point of Chinese social life.
1606. Tea arrives in Europe
Tea was introduced to Europe when the Dutch established their trading port on the island of Java, Indonesia, and sent their first cargo of tea, by sea, to Amsterdam in 1606. Tea quickly became popular amongst the upper classes, including in Portugal, where Catharine of Braganza grew up. When she married Charles II in 1662, Catherine’s father, King John IV of Portugal, provided a dowry of luxury goods, including a chest of tea, which had become the favourite drink at the Portuguese Royal Court. Following Catherine’s arrival, it wasn’t long before tea became fashionable in the drawing rooms of the wealthier classes and court of England. As well as the chest of tea her sizeable dowry was the Portuguese colony of ‘Bom Bahia’ (Mumbai) on the western coast of India. King Charles II agreed to transfer control of Mumbai to the East India Company and it soon became its base.
1664. The East India Company
Before 1600 Portugal controlled most European trade with India and the Far East, an area known then as the Indies, but in 1600 Queen Elizabeth I gave a Royal Charter to a new trading company, the East India Company (EIC), giving it a monopoly over all British trade with the Indies and therefore the only company licensed to sell goods, such as tea, into Britain. The EIC weathered various political storms and when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, the Company ingratiated itself with the King, who extended its privileges to allow the Company to take military action to establish itself in places where it wished to trade. In 1664 the EIC placed its first order for tea - for 100lbs of China tea to be shipped from Java for import into Britain.
The Company was powerful overseas too, becoming an agent of British imperialism in South Asia and the de facto colonial ruler of large parts of India, where it used its private army to control several states and principalities. It maintained high prices and charged its tax collectors with extracting as much revenue from the local population as possible.
It was gradually deprived of its commercial monopoly and political control following the Indian Uprising in 1857 and was formally dissolved in 1874.