25 September: Boreham on Tea

Cups and Saucers
It was on September 25, 1667, that a London apothecary advised Mrs. Pepys—the "poor wretch" who figures so prominently in her husband's famous diary—to try for her defluxions a strange Chinese concoction known as 'tay.' In the three centuries that have followed, that queer concoction has attained an amazing popularity, indeed, Admiral Lord Mountevans and Lord Woolton have recently borne eloquent witness to the inestimable value of the service rendered by tea amidst the desperate hazards and fierce excitements of the war. This, of course, is by no means surprising. From the dawn of time, tea has been humanity's constant friend. The men who slaved at the erection of the pyramids may or may not have boiled their billies on the banks of the Nile at midday, and at sunset, yet certainly the infusion and enjoyment of the refreshing beverage was familiar to generations that even in those days represented the dim antiquity of the race. Away back in the childhood of the world, the drinking of tea acquired not only a social but a cultural and even spiritual significance. An ancient Oriental philosopher declares that the ancient cult of Tea-ism was founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence.

A child thinks of tea as liquid prophecy. He counts the "kisses" that rise to the surface as the sugar melts, and fancies that he can tell from the number of stalks that float on the cup how many strangers are likely to visit the home. This, of course, belongs to the realm of fantasy. But, even though we decline to recognise a cup of tea as liquid prophecy, we are bound to regard it as liquid history. Whether we turn our faces to the east or the west, this fact stands crystal clear. "Tea," says Sir John Rees, "has changed the face of India; the abodes of savagery, the haunts of the dread head-hunters, have been transformed into graceful and picturesque plantations. And, if we turn to the west, the evidence is no less striking.

Teacups Decide The Destiny Of Nations
When the monument to the Pilgrim Fathers was unveiled at Southampton, Mr. W. H. Page, the brilliant American Ambassador, bore witness to the influence of tea upon the moulding of the Western world. If, he argued, tea had been available to the Pilgrim Fathers, it might have redeemed their temperament from a certain acerbity that disfigured their behaviour. A supply of soothing Pekoe, he suggested, might have saved them from persecuting Quakers and burning witches. "Why," Mr. Page exclaimed, "it was tea that was at the bottom of the War of Independence!" Tea, he averred, is the biggest thing in American history; and he closed by declaring that, if tea had crossed the Atlantic a few generations earlier, the whole course of world history would have been revolutionised. History—north, south, east, and west—is redolent of tea.

It was on a sultry September afternoon, shortly after the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, that Samuel Pepys "did send far a cup of tee—a China drink—of which I never drank before." This was just before the Great Plague; and, what with the pestilence, the fire that followed, and the national unrest our premier diarist had other fish to fry without worrying about the novel beverage that he had sipped that September afternoon. But, as soon as things approximated to normality, his mind reverted to the fascinating theme. "Home," he says, "and there find my wife making of tea, a drink which Mr. Pelling, the potticary, tells her is good for her cold and defluxions." Whether or not the honest potticary's anticipations were realised and the defluxions dispelled does not appear, but, judging from the tardiness with which the beverage won its way to popular favour, we may assume that there was nothing about the cure that savoured of the miraculous.

A Famous Storm In A Teacup
A generation later, Dr. Johnson became the champion of the teapot. "I am a hardened and shameless tea drinker," he says. "For twenty years I have diluted my meals with nothing but the infusion of this delicious plant. My kettle has scarcely time to cool. You may describe me as one who, with tea amuses his evening, with tea solaces his midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning." Unhappily, this citation plunges us into the atmosphere of controversy. We see at a glance that Dr. Johnson's confession was not made in cold blood. There is heat in it, for the doctor is angry. Tea had been attacked and the irascible old doctor had sprung to its defence. The truth is that Mr. Jones Hanway, one of the most influential writers, philanthropists, and reformers of the 18th century, had at last turned his attention to this new habit of tea-drinking. And when, greatly daring, he hurled his thunderbolts among the tea-cups, he brought upon his innocent old head the wrath of Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, and a host of other powerful belligerents. Johnson had written in praise of tea: Hanway attacked him; and Johnson, after a full and deliberate pause, fired a second shot. Boswell says that it is the only instance in which the doctor deigned to notice anything written against him. But Hanway had touched him on a very tender spot. Nobody, as Boswell remarks, was ever more fond of the infusion of the fragrant leaf than was he. He drank immoderately, and, by setting the fashion, assured the triumph of the teapot.

A century later, the habit that looked like a freak in Pepys and a fad in Johnson had become so universal that Cowper could attune his lyre to the theme:—

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.

From that moment the teapot has never looked back. Its conquests are countless. It was said of Charles Simeon, one of the most scholarly and most saintly figures of his time, that he envangelised five continents with his teapot. Spending his life as vicar of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, he crowded his tea table with undergraduates, and then exercised all his powers of persuasion to make missionaries of them. When he died, the most magnetic personalities on all the mission fields were Simeon's "tea table men." The teapot has established a noble tradition, and it will doubtless enhance its ancient prestige amidst the unimaginable wonder of the years to be.

F W Boreham

Image: Cup of tea