18th Century
18th Century - The controversy over tea continues in England and Scotland where opponents claim that it is overpriced, harmful to health, and may even lead to moral decay.
1700-Milk or cream is first used by tea drinkers in American colonies.
1702-14 - During Queen Anne’s reign, tea drinking thrives in British coffee-houses.
1705 - Annual tea importation to England tops 800,000 pounds.
1706 - Thomas Twinning opens his famous Tom’s Coffee House in London
1715-Green tea first comes into use in England.
1716- Tea is brought to Canada by the Hudson Bay Company.
1717 - Tom’s Coffee House evolves into the first tea shop called the Golden Lyon. Both men and women patronize the shop. This is the first exclusive tea shop in England opened by Thomas Twining.
1723 - British Prime Minister Robert Walpole reduces British import taxes on tea.
1730’s-The popularity of tea delines in France, infavour of coffee, wine and chocolate
1735 - The Russian Empress extends tea as a regulated trade. In order to fill Russia’s tea demand, traders and three hundred camels travel 11,000 miles to and from China, which takes sixteen months. Russian tea-drinking customs emerge, which entail using tea concentrate, adding hot water, topping it with a lemon, and drinking it through a lump of sugar held between the teeth.
1750- (i) The Japanese tea is exported from Nagasaki by some Chinese merchants. (ii)Black tea gradually supersedes green tea in Holland where it also replaces coffee to some extent as a breakfast beverage.
1753-Linnaeous, the Swedish botanist, classifies the tea plants under two genera, Thea sinensis and Camellia, in his “Species Plantarum”.
1762- Linnaeous, in a second edition of “Species Plantarum” discards the name Thea sinensis for the tea plant and credits it with two genera-Thea bohea (for black tea manufacture) and Thea viridis (for green tea manufacture).
1765 - Tea easily ranks as the most popular beverage in the American colonies.
1767 - The Townshend Revenue Act passes British Parliament, imposing duty on tea and other goods imported into the British American colonies. A town meeting is held in Boston to protest the Townshend Revenue Act, which leads to an American boycott of British imports and a smuggling in of Dutch teas.
1770 - British Parliament rescinds/revokes the Townshend Revenue Act, eliminating all import taxes except those on teas.
1773 - In protest of British tea taxes and in what becomes known as the Boston Tea Party, colonists disguised as Native Americans board East India Company ships and unload hundreds of chests of tea into the harbour.
1773- (i)The John Company and the East India Company merge,forming the New East India Company.The new Company had a complete monopoly on all trade and commerce in India and China.Trade with China is expensive however,the England’s solution to its financial problem is opium. They begin to trade opium with the Chinese for tea. The Chinese would become addicted to the supply of opium, ensuring a constant supply of cheap tea to the English. (ii) The famous Boston Tea Party occurs when American patriots dressed as Mohawk Indians push 342 chests of tea overboard. This act eventually leads to the American Declaration of Independence of 1776.
1774 –(i) A furious British Parliament passes the Coercive Acts in response to the American “tea party” rebellions. King George III agrees to the Boston Port Bill, which closes the Boston Harbor until the East India Company is reimbursed for its tea.
(ii)The first English patent for a tea-making device is granted to one John Wadham
1775 - After several British attempts to end the taxation protests, the American Revolution begins.
1778 - Before the indigenous Assam tea plants is identified, British naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, hired by the East India Company, suggests that India grow plant and cultivate imported Chinese tea. For 50 years, India is unsuccessful.
1780- Tea smuggling is rampant in England as people resort to illegal measures to avoid paying the high tax on tea.
1784 - The grandson of Thomas Twinning persuades the Prime Minister William Pitt to drop the high taxes on tea, not only eliminating smuggling, but making tea an affordable luxury to Brits of all walks of life. Parliament further reduces the British import taxes on tea in an effort to end the smuggling that accounts for the majority of the nation's tea imports.
1785 - 11 million pounds of tea are brought into England.
1788-The eminent English naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks calls attention to the tea growing possibilities of British India.
1789- The American Revolution is over, and America begins to trade directly with China. They would eventually break England's tea monopoly with their faster sailing ships, and honest way of doing business (they paid gold, not Opium for tea).
1793- The scientists who accompanies with Lord Macartney’s embassy to China send seeds of tea plant to Calcutta (Kolkata).
1797 - English tea drinking hits a rate of two pounds per capita annually, a rate that increases by five times over the next ten years.
1798-The Dutch East India Company is dissolved by the Government, which assumes debts of more than 50 million dollars.
