TEA
BECOMES AN INSTITUTION
In the eighteenth century, tea became an institution,
partly with a boost from Queen Anne (r. 1702-14).
She started the custom of drinking tea instead of
ale for breakfast. She is also credited with originating
the use of a large silver teapot instead of the small
Chinese ceramic ones. The attraction of tea is described
in an oft-quoted passage from Agnes Repplier's 1933
To Think of Tea!
Tea had come as a deliverer to a land that called
for deliverance; a land of beef and ale, of heavy
eating and abundant drunkenness; of gray skies and
harsh winds; of strong-nerved, stout-purposed, slow-thinking
men and women. Above all, a land of sheltered homes
and warm firesides—firesides that were waiting—waiting,
for the bub-bling kettle and the fragrant breath of
tea.
Certainly the most famous English verse about the
feeling of security7 a cup of tea evokes must be that
by William Cowper, an insecure though reputable poet.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, whee the sofa round;
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
England's infatuation with the beverage in the first
half of the eight-eenth century was so great that
it alarmed some observers. An econo-mist complained
that money spent on it would better be used for bread,
and that teatime wasted hours that should have been
spent working.
In 1757, Dr. Samuel Johnson gave a thunderous reply
to a public letter attacking tea drinking, describing
himself as I, A hardened and shameless tea drinker,
who has for many years diluted his meals with only
the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle
has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the
evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea
welcomes the morning. Actually, he might have preferred
wine, and is reported to have once downed thirty-six
glasses, but realized that with wine he could get
no work done. So it was tea that fueled his efforts
on the first dictionary of the English language. The
love affair with tea inspired numerous poems about
it, and indeed to it. This went on into the late nineteenth
century. Tributes to tea appear in the works of Cowper,
Thackeray, De Quincey, and even in those of Norway's
Ibsen. And the tea party became such an institution
that it merited its own literary burlesque in the
marvelous Mad Tea Party of Eewis CarrolPs Through
the Looking Glass.
Tea was given a further boost by the temperance movement,
which staged mass "tea meetings" promoting
it as an alternative to alcoholic gin and ale. But
not all crusaders were in the tea camp. The Methodist
. reformer John W^esley preached against it as a waste
of money that could better be spent by the poor on
food. (A similar view was held in the I United States
in the 1830s by Dr. William Alcott, who calculated
that an annual expenditure of six dollars per tea
drinker added up to $20 million a year, enough to
support 50,000 families or employ 50,000 teachers.)
WTiat is less widely known about Wesley is that during
an J illness he turned to tea and became extremely
fond of it. Thomas Wedgewood, the porcelain maker,
presented him with a huge teapot.
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