The Little Tea Book | Page 4

discovery of a number of new
diseases to the debility born of daily tea-drinking. Dr. Paulli denied that it had either taste
or fragrance, owing its reputation entirely to the peculiar vessels and water used by the
Chinese, so that it was folly to partake of it, unless tea-drinkers could supply themselves

with pure water from the Vassie and the fragrant tea-pots of Gnihing. This sagacious
sophist and dogmatizer also discovered that, among other evils, tea-drinking deprived its
devotees of the power of expectoration, and entailed sterility; wherefore he hoped
Europeans would thereafter keep to their natural beverages-- wine and ale--and reject
coffee, chocolate, and tea, which were all equally bad for them.
In spite of the array of old-fashioned doctors, wits, and lovers of the pipe and bottle, who
opposed evil effects, sneered at the finely bred men of England being turned into women,
and grumbled at the stingy custom of calling for dish-water after dinner, the custom of
tea-drinking continued to grow. By 1689 the sale of the leaf had increased sufficiently to
make it politic to reduce the duty on it from eight pence on the decoction to five shillings
a pound on the leaf. The value of tea at this time may be estimated from a customhouse
report of the sale of a quantity of divers sorts and qualities, the worst being equal to that
"used in coffee-houses for making single tea," which, being disposed of by "inch of
candle," fetched an average of twelve shillings a pound.
During the next three years the consumption of tea was greatly increased; but very little
seems to have been known about it by those who drank it--if we may judge from the
enlightenment received from a pamphlet, given gratis, "up one flight of stairs, at the sign
of the Anodyne Necklace, without Temple Bar." All it tells us about tea is that it is the
leaf of a little shoot growing plentifully in the East Indies; that Bohea--called by the
French "Bean Tea"--is best of a morning with bread and butter, being of a more
nourishing nature than the green which may be used when a meal is not wanted. Three or
four cups at a sitting are enough; and a little milk or cream renders the beverage smoother
and more powerful in blunting the acid humors of the stomach.
The satirists believed that tea had a contrary effect upon the acid humors of the mind,
making the tea-table the arena for the display of the feminine capacity for backbiting and
scandal. Listen to Swift describe a lady enjoying her evening cups of tea:
"Surrounded with the noisy clans Of prudes, coquettes and harridans. Now voices over
voices rise, While each to be the loudest vies; They contradict, affirm, dispute, No single
tongue one moment mute; All mad to speak, and none to hearken, They set the very
lapdog barking; Their chattering makes a louder din Than fish-wives o'er a cup of gin;
Far less the rabble roar and rail When drunk with sour election ale."
Even gentle Gay associated soft tea with the temper of women when he pictures Doris
and Melanthe abusing all their bosom friends, while--
"Through all the room From flowery tea exhales a fragrant fume."
But not all the women were tea-drinkers in those days. There was Madam Drake, the
proprietress of one of the three private carriages Manchester could boast. Few men were
as courageous as she in declaring against the tea-table when they were but invited guests.
Madam Drake did not hesitate to make it known when she paid an afternoon's visit that
she expected to be offered her customary solace--a tankard of ale and a pipe of tobacco.
Another female opponent of tea was the Female Spectator, which declared the use of the

fluid to be not only expensive, but pernicious; the utter destruction of all economy, the
bane of good housewifery, and the source of all idleness. Tradesmen especially suffered
from the habit. They could not serve their customers because their apprentices were
absent during the busiest hours of the day drumming up gossips for their mistresses'
tea-tables.
This same censor says that the most temperate find themselves obliged to drink wine
freely after tea, or supplement their Bohea with rum and brandy, the bottle and glass
becoming as necessary to the tea-table as the slop-basin.
Although Jonas Hanway, the father of the umbrella, was successful in keeping off water,
he was not successful in keeping out tea. All he did accomplish in his essay on the subject
was to call forth a reply from Dr. Johnson, who, strange to say, instead of vigorously
defending his favorite tipple, rather excuses it as an amiable weakness; confessing that
tea is a barren superfluity, fit only to amuse the idle, relax the studious,