So, how to make a good cup of tea? Here are instructions from the Cambridge Chronicle:
How to Make Tea Properly. – The proper way to make a cup of good tea is a matter of some importance. The plan which I have practiced for these twelve months is this: The teapot is at once filled up with boiling water, then the tea is put into the pot, and is allowed stand for five minutes before it is used; the leaves gradually absorb the water and as gradually sink to the bottom; the result is that the tea leaves are not scalded, as they were when boiling water is poured on them, and you get all the true flavor of the tea. In truth, much less tea is required in this way than under the old and common practice.
Cambridge Chronicle August 15, 1856
We all know about the Boston Tea Party of 1773. But did you know the tea in those boxes hurled into the harbor was green tea? Green tea began life in China, and over the centuries bounced around to Japan, Korea, India and ultimately Europe, the United States, and everywhere else. It all started with a chance dead tea leaf floating in the Emperor’s cup of water somewhere around 2737 B. C. Apparently, he liked the taste, and green tea was born. In the 1500s, thanks to the efforts of English, Dutch, and Portuguese merchants, tea began its worldwide migration. In the 1600s, the Chinese began brewing fermented tea leaves which gave us what we now think of as traditional, black tea.
VARIETIES OF TEAS
All true tea comes from the Cammellia sinesis plant. The varieties derive from the different ways tea leaves are processed and brewed, as outlined in this article from the Cambridge Chronicle:
The article also included a list of green teas: Gunpowder (rolled into “bullets”), Imperial (Great Pearl tea), Hyson, Twankay (after a stream by that name in China), and Brick tea (a block of tea invented by the Tartars to make it easier to carry). Although Oolong was on the green tea list too, it is actually a black tea, but was listed because it tasted green.
TEA DRINKING ACCOUTREMENTS AND CUSTOMS
The original Chinese tea cup did not have a handle. When tea arrived in England, this tradition was continued until the 1750s, when cups with handles emerged to protect delicate fingers from hot cups. Your host might also offer tea to gentlemen in a “moustache” cup which enabled sipping while keeping the “moustache” dry:
And the teapot may have been perched on a “teapot tile” to protect the table:
INFUSING TEA
Originally, loose tea leaves were added to hot water. When the leaves were brewed, the water would be filtered through a strainer into the teacup. These strainers ranged from the fancy…
…to the simply practical.
Next came the invention of a perforated metal ball filled with tea leaves and dunked into the pot or cup. Also available from fancy to plain:
Finally came tea bags. It is generally thought that a New York tea merchant named Thomas Sullivan invented the teabag. Actually, silk tea bags had been around since the early days in China. The first patent for the tea bag in the U. S. was given to two women: Roberta Lawson and Mary McLaren of Milwaukee in 1903.
Sullivan’s claim to fame is that he took the idea of tea bags and used them as a way of packaging his tea samples for vendors.
MILK & SUGAR? OR LEMON?
The English began adding sugar to tea in the late 1600s. The French soon came up with the idea of adding milk to bring the temperature down (and avoid the teacup cracking). It was the Russians who introduced adding lemon to tea served at travel posts along highways. Lemon was thought to soothe stomachs upset by the rigors of jolting carriage travel.
TEA PARTIES
It’s generally agreed that European tea parties became popular in the 1840s, when the Duchess of Bedford initiated the custom as a needed afternoon pick-me-up around 4:00pm. It evolved into the standard 4:00 tea for the upper classes, and a later, “meat tea” (more like supper), for laborers after work. The 4:00 tea was often a social affair:
AND HOW ABOUT THOSE “MARTHA WASHINGTON” TEA PARTIES!
The “Martha Washington Tea Party” became popular at, during, and after the country’s centennial celebrations in 1875-1877. They mimicked Martha Washington’s famous tea parties, which she began when she and the General moved to Philadelphia after his inauguration in New York. Initially her invitee list included only Philadelphia’s upper-class ladies. As the tea parties became weekly affairs, they also evolved into intellectual and political salons. Others followed her lead. One hundred years later, at the time of this country’s centennial, many ladies celebrated with what by then were called “Martha Washington Tea Parties.” The main point of these affairs was to dress up in Revolutionary era costumes:
ADVERTISING TEA IN CAMBRIDGE
The first advertisements in (digitally available) Cambridge Newspapers for Tea were for the Boston Tea Company.
That same year, someone felt compelled to rant against “Imposter Tea,” in particular “Canton Tea”
The “Big Tea Kettle” was put up by the Oriental Tea Company in 1873—and it still exists today—now outside Starbucks Coffee by Boston City Hall.
THE INFLUENCE OF TEA DRINKING ON SOCIAL CUSTOMS: TEA HOUSES
Initially, any shop selling tea would call itself a “Tea House”
The term “tea house” evolved to refer to a social place where friends could to sit down and enjoy a light lunch and “cuppa.”
THE BLACKSMITH HOUSE
Today perhaps the most well- known Cambridge tea shop was the Blacksmith House at 56 Brattle street.
Formerly The Cock Horse Inn, and then Dexter Pratt’s blacksmith shop, it was subsequently owned by escaped slave Mary Walker (1817-1873). Mary had been a seamstress on a plantation in North Carolina. She made her escape to freedom in 1848 while on a trip her enslaver’s family to Philadelphia. She settled in Cambridge where she earned her living as a seamstress. Mary later purchased the Dexter Pratt blacksmith shop from Pratt’s children in 1870. She ran it as a boarding house and ensured that it remained in her family by stipulating in her will that it must do so until her youngest son turned 21. It remained in her family until 1912.
In 1947, the house was purchased by Elsa Brändström Ulich (1888-1948).
Elsa, “the Angel of Siberia” had an extraordinary life. She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, where her father was the Swedish military attaché. The family returned to Sweden where Elsa grew up and went back St. Petersburg when her father was made the Swedish Ambassador to Tsar Nicholas II. During WWI, Elsa was a nurse with the Imperial Russian Amy and served in Siberia. After the war, she was worked with the Swedish Red Cross and got involved with, or started, a number of aid organizations for soldiers, POWs, women and children. Elsa moved to the U. S. in 1933 when her husband, Robert Ulrich, was appointed a lecturer Harvard. In Cambridge, she started a consignment shop to employ Eastern European refugees from the War. It was located at 102 Mt. Auburn Street and was called The Window Shop. In 1947, the shop moved to “The Blacksmith House”, enabling her to expand her tearoom and pastry shop. Sadly, Elsa died of cancer just a year later. By 1971, the original purpose of the shop had been met, and it closed its doors. The property was purchased by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in 1972.
NEXT CAME TEA DANCES
Tea dances emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century and provided a means for young ladies to mix with young men while being discreetly chaperoned. Private tea dances were a means of introducing debutantes to society. Some of the most popular tea dances were held at hotels with a full orchestra.
HERBAL TEA
This post has focused on traditional black tea, but of course herbal teas have been used for medicinal purposes for millennia and have their own long and interesting history. Perhaps a post for another day!
Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox
SOURCES
https://www.hackberrytea.com/blogs/tea-education/the-history-of-green-tea
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67297/how-tea-parties-got-their-start
https://www.afternoontoremember.com/learn/etiquette
https://www.apollotea.com/tea-articles/tea-in-russia/9-russian-tea-tradition
https://www.nutritionadvance.com/healthy-foods/types-of-tea/
https://www.wbur.org/news/2012/02/21/mary-walker-runaway-slave
https://mountauburn.org/mary-walker-1818-1873/
Sweet Auburn Magazine, February 2013
Wikipedia
