Tea Leaves | Page 7

century, tea did not begin to be used as a beverage in England even by the Royalty until after 1650.
In a number of the weekly Mercurius Politicus (a predecessor of the present London Gazette), dated September 30, 1658, occurs this advertisement:
"That excellent and by all pysitians approved China drink called by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations Tay, alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a Cophee-house in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London."
This appears to be the earliest recorded and authentic evidence of the use of tea in England.
Macaulay, in a note in his History of England, says that tea became a fashionable drink among Parisians, and went out of fashion, before it was known in London, and refers to the published correspondence of the French physician, Dr. Guy Patin, with Dr. Charles Spon, under dates of March 10 and 22, 1648, for proof of the fact. Macaulay also says that Cardinal Mazarin was a great tea-drinker, and Chancellor Seguier, likewise.
Frankest and shrewdest among men of brains who have given to the world their inmost thoughts, old Samuel Pepys, pauses in the midst of conferences with Kings and Princes to record that "I did send for a cup of tea (a China Drink) of which I had never drank before." This in September 1660. Seven years later he writes in that wonderful Diary--"Home, and there find my wife drinking of tee, a drink which Mr. Pelling, the Potticary, tells her is good for her cold and defluxions." Then goes on to rejoice over the repulse of the Dutch in an attempt upon London.
To coffee and tea are due the establishment of that unique English institution, the London Coffee House. Inns, where quests were expected to lodge as well as eat; restaurants, in which men tarried only for a single meal; and Beer and Spirit shops, abounded in London; but the Coffee House ushered in a new era, and actually changed the daily habits of a large majority of representative London citizens. While it is asserted Mr. Jacobs established the first Coffee House in England, at Oxford, it was a native of Smyrna by the name of Pasqua Rosee who first opened a Coffee House in London, in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in 1652. Hot coffee only was here dispensed, during the day and evening.
Coffee Houses soon increased in number and extended over the business districts of London. Business men quickly recognized the value of a beverage which cleared the mental vision while refreshing and stimulating both mind and body, and repaired to the Coffee House at all hours for the joint purpose of drinking coffee and transacting business with their fellows. Coffee-Houses became the Commercial Exchanges of London, and they were also the precursors of modern English Clubs. Men of affairs, Statesmen, literary celebrities, artists, naval and military officers, all repaired to the Coffee Houses to meet each other, to hear and discuss the serious topics and the light gossip of the day.
The introduction of tea gave the coffee-houses another strong hold upon their customers, and chocolate as a beverage soon followed. Among the early dispensors of these harmless hot drinks was Thomas Garway, or as written later, Garraway, whose four- story brick coffee-house on Exchange Alley, first opened in 1659, had been a rallying point for Londoners for 216 years, when it was pulled down to make room for other structures, in 1873. Garraway left a monument that has outlasted his coffee-house, in the form of a famous tea circular.
Garway's Famous Circular is so often quoted and mutilated that we print it here in full; it has no date, but it is supposed to have been printed in 1660:
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AN EXACT DESCRIPTION OF THE GROWTH, QUALITY AND VIRTUES OF THE TEA LEAF, by Thomas Garway, in Exchange Alley, near the Royal Exchange, in London, Tobacconist, and Seller and Retailer of Tea and Coffee.
"Tea is generally brought from China, and groweth there upon little shrubs and bushes, the branches whereof are well garnished with white flowers, that are yellow within, of the bigness and fashion of sweet-brier, but in smell unlike, bearing thin green leaves, about the brightness of Scordium, Myrtle or Sumack. This plant has been reported to grow wild only, but doth not: for they plant it in their gardens about four foot distance and it groweth about four foot high, and of the seeds they maintain and increase their stock. Of all places in China this plant groweth in greatest plenty in the province of Xemsi, latitude 36 degrees bordering up on the west of the province of Namking, near the city of Lucheu, the Island Ladrones, and Japan, and is called ' ChA.' Of this famous leaf there are divers sorts (though all one shape), some much better than others, the upper leaves excelling