BRITISH AND AMERICANS
Tea figures in two episodes of British-American relations:
the American Revolution of 1776 and the rivalry of
the clipper ships. Americans drank tea before the
British. In 1650 Peter Stuyvesant introduced it to
the jj Dutch colony New Amsterdam, and from there
it spread throughout, North America. A tea meal in
Dutch New York is described in Washington living's
famous short story "The Eegend of Sleepy Hollow."
Two Bostonians in 1690 became the first English colonists
licensed to import tea. One was Zabdiel Boyiston,
an apothecary, who advertised "green and ordinary"
teas at retail.
At first in the English colonies, probably around
1670, the tea leaves were prepared by boiling them
a long time, and the bitter liquid was taken without
milk or sugar. The flavor obviously could not have
excited anyone, so tea's stimulating effect or the
belief in its medicinal properties must have been
the attraction. Some users also salted the leaves
and ate them with butter.
In 1674, wdien the British took over New Amsterdam
from the Dutch and renamed it New York, they found
themselves with a colony that probably drank more
tea than all England. In imitation of Eondon, coifce
houses appeared in New York City. and also tea gardens
of outdoor rch-cshinent and socializm. A pump with
particularly pure water became the site of'onc or
these gardens at what is now Park Row. There was at
least one on the Bowery another near the intersection
Mulberry and Grand streets. They served tea, coiree,
hot rolls, and in the evening there were fireworks,
concerts, and dancing, Women went to parries, each
cdrrving her own saucer, spoon, a tea cup of the most
delicate china that held only as much is a wine glass.
All circumstance was cut short by momentous events
of history.
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