tea fact t's

Tea replaced Gin as the drink of the masses in Eighteenth century England.

The oriental tea ceremony was developed by Zen Buddhist monks. Their ritual of making tea expressed 'the quest of greatness in the smallest details of life', and are 'an outward form of an inner belief in the importance of peace and harmony'. Tea ceremonies would be run by Tea Masters, and follow the Way of Tea.

Think of all that the next time you make a round for the office. We want to know how you become a Tea Master.

Coffee actually predates tea in England - early coffee houses started selling tea but it was slow to catch on until Catherine of Braganza, Charles II's wife made it trendy (like Posh Spice and St Tropez).

Tea used to be so heavily taxed that it was imported and distributed by a black market of underground smugglers. Pitt the Younger (surely the best named Prime Minster in the history of England) realised that the 119% rate of tax was a bit daft, and slashed this to 12.5%. Tea smuggling ceased remarkably quickly.

Early medics worried that tea drinking among the working classes would lead to weakness and melancholy (unlike Gin...!).

During both the First and Second World War, the British Government took over the importing of tea, to make sure that our favourite hot cup of sustenance would still be within reach.

"Lipton's tea" were the first company to sponsor a football competition the 1909 world club cup then again in 1911. The biannual competition was then abandoned as they could not find a replacement sponsor in 1913.

If you'd like to know more about the history of tea, we'd recommend you take a look at Wikipedia and The British Tea Council