Great Britain was the last of the three great sea-faring nations to break into the Chinese and East Indian trade routes. This was due in part to the unsteady ascension to the throne of the Stuarts and the Cromwellian Civil War.

The first printed reference to tea, calling it chau, was a 1598 English translation of “Voyages and Travel of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten”, originally published in Holland. Linschoten, a Dutch explorer, sailed around South Africa to Goa. The account of his travels and tea drinking customs of India stimulated future Dutch and English expeditions to the East Indies.

The first samples of tea reached England between 1652 and 1654. Tea was referred to as the China drink, tcha, chaw, tay, tee, and tea and was at first regarded more as a medicine than a fashionable drink. By 1657 tea was being served at Garraway’s coffee house for such cures as cleaning kidneys and “overcoming superfluous sleep”.

When tea was introduced in England a pound of tea cost the average British laborer the equivalent of none months wages, and was the drink of Royalty. Teacups were small!

As in Holland, it was the nobility that provided the necessary stamp of approval and so insured its acceptance.

Tea became a society drink for ladies when in 1662 Charles II married, while in exile, the Portuguese Infanta Princess Catherine of Braganza 1638–1705) born in Vila Viçosa, the daughter of King John IV of Portugal. She was married to Charles in 1662 as part of an alliance between England and Portugal.

Charles himself had grown up in the Dutch capital. As a result, both he and his Portuguese bride were confirmed tea drinkers. When the monarchy was re-established, the two rulers brought this foreign tea tradition to England with them.

Elizabeth I had founded The John Company (East India Company) by Royal Charter on December 31, 1600 to challenge the Dutch-Portuguese monopoly of the East Indian spice trade. The spice trade had been a monopoly of Spain and Portugal until the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) by England gave the English the chance to break the monopoly.

When Catherine de Braganza married Charles she brought as part of her dowry the territories of Tangier and Bombay. Suddenly, the John Company had a base of operations.

In 1612 The East India Company, which was officially named “Governor and company of Merchants of London Trading with East Indies” defeated the Portuguese in India and won trading concessions from the Mughal Empire.

With the approval of local Indian rulers, the East India Company established trading posts in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, and began trading in cottons, silks, indigo, saltpeter and tea.

Some notable dates in tea history:

1717 Thomas Twining converted Toim’s Coffee House into the golden Lyon, the first teashop in London.

1776 England sent the first opium to China. Opium addiction in China funded the escalating demand for tea in England. Cash trade for the drug increased until the opium wars began in 1839.

1835 The East India Company established experimental tea plantations in Assam, India.

1834 An Imperial Edict from the Chinese Emperor closed all Chinese ports to foreign vessels until the end of the First Opium War in 1842.

1838 A small amount of Indian tea sent to England was eagerly consumed due to its novelty.

1840 Afternoon tea was "invented" by Anna, Duchess of Bedford (1783 – 1857), wife of the 7th Duke as "a way to quell the inevitable hunger pangs between lunch and dinner".

1856 Tea was planted in many areas of Darjeeling.

1857 Tea plantations were started in Ceylon, though their tea would not be exported until the 1870’s.

1869 A deadly fungus wiped out the coffee crop in Ceylon, shifting preference from coffee to tea.

1869 The Suez Canal opened, making the trip to China shorter and more economical by steamship.

1870 Twinings of England began to blend tea for consistency.

1876 Glasgow grocer, Thomas Lipton opens his first teashop.

1953 World’s first instant tea is introduced.