Page 12 - Preparation of Tea Brochure

In 1657, Thomas Garway, an English proprietor, got the bright idea of offering tea to the public, and the beverage quickly became the drink of choice, far outpacing wines and liquors. Taverns became deserted in favor of “coffee houses” (which were so named because the public sale of coffee pre-dated the sale of tea by a few years).
The coffee houses wielded so much power that a threatened King Charles II shut them down in 1675, calling the selling of tea a virtual act of sedition. A month later, the king had to recant his edict when the tea, coffee and chocolate dealers rose up in protest. Of course, the fact that the king’s wife, Queen Catherine of Braganza, was a tea drinker didn’t help his cause,
as she set an example for all of Britain’s subjects to indulge in the new fashionable drink.
Unfortunately for those in power, Britain was losing all the taxes that accompanied liquor sales. But the government quickly remedied that situation by imposing a tea tax.
Across the Atlantic, the tea tax was causing another sort of commotion in the American colonies. While many other British taxes on goods bound for America had been repealed, the three pence per pound of tea remained intact to save the nancially mismanaged British East India Company. Over a ve-year period (1768-72), the colonies paid duty on nearly 2 million pounds of tea.
In amed by the tax and other restrictions on the shipping and receiving of tea in America, the Sons of Liberty attempted to block the consignees from accepting the taxed tea. In Philadelphia and New York, tea ships were turned back before entering the harbor. In Charleston, the tea was unloaded but kept under bond in a damp warehouse.
The Boston Sons of Liberty were determined to make more of a statement. On December 16, 1773, they let two ships sail into harbor. Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and others, met in the Old South Meeting House to plot their strategy. After sending a message to the governor to turn back the tea, and having the message informed, the mob descended
on the waterfront. Disguised as Native American Indians, they emptied 342 large chests of precious tea into the harbor.
The Boston Tea Party, as it became known, caused the British Parliament to pass a series
of laws that Americans referred to as the “Intolerable Acts”, limiting the political and geographic freedom of the colonists. These unjust acts were the direct cause for the convening of the First Continental Congress, which ultimately led to the Revolutionary War.
So, in a sense, Americans can thank tea for providing a cause to ght for independence.
Of course, Americans have continued to embrace tea ever since, adding their own distinctive traditions, like iced tea and the tea bag.
Iced tea was created at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. The temperature was soaring and the staff in the Far East Tea House couldn’t get any fairgoers to even look their way, let alone sample their tea. So they poured the hot tea over ice cubes and the drink quickly became the exposition’s most popular beverage.
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