Tea, Chai, Cha, Shai, Teh, Tsai, Saa, whatever name you call it with, is the magic brew that has no equal. In India, every household begins its day with a cup of tea. It is brewed in various styles and spiced with flavors. Today, masala chai is served across the world, and Chai Latte finds a place on the menu of Starbucks. Coca-Cola has frequently identified tea as its primary competitor in India. It is so ubiquitous that it is difficult to imagine that India was not a major consumer of tea till about 1800 AD. While indigenous varieties of tea were consumed in some parts of India, the commercial and cultural introduction of tea as a beverage was a deliberate colonial project of the British East India Company. The British introduced commercial-scale tea to India in the 1830s, mainly to meet the rising demand in England and because they found it costly to import tea from China.
In popular imagination, if one thinks of the most English-English person, the person comes complete with a stiff upper lip and a cup of tea in their hand. Tea is considered so utterly English that it is hard to imagine a time when the country did not drink it, discuss it or define itself by it. Taken per capita, the British are among the largest consumers of tea. But how did they learn to drink tea? Tea does not grow in England. The path that brought tea to Britain began far beyond its shores – in the imperial networks of Portugal. Understanding the story of tea requires looking at global trade, diplomacy, cultural exchanges and royal marriage alliances. Legend has it that the word ‘Tea’ itself is an acronym with Portuguese roots.
The Portuguese tea story starts with the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama in 1498. This was the launch pad, and by the early 1500s, Portuguese explorers and traders had established maritime routes that connected Europe to India, Southeast Asia and upto China and Japan. Portuguese merchants were the first Westerners allowed to reside in Macau, a gateway city to southern China. This brought them in touch with tea. Portuguese traders and missionaries sent tea samples back home and wrote accounts of how Chinese elites prepared, served, and consumed the drink. These texts circulated through aristocratic and scholarly circles in Portugal, shaping early ideas about tea as a refined and exotic luxury. Though the supply was sporadic, by the late 1500s and early 1600s, Portuguese nobility had begun drinking tea as an exotic luxury item.
From Portugal, it then travelled to England. The single most decisive factor in tea’s introduction to England was a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza. She was the daughter of King John IV of Portugal, who in 1662 was married to King Charles II of England. The marriage itself was one of convenience. Charles II had inherited debts from the earlier government and soon ran up new ones of his own. Desperately short of cash, the identified solution was to marry a wealthy foreign princess and to demand a large amount of money and goods as dowry. The choice fell on the Portuguese princess, and her father provided a dowry that included money, spices, treasures and the lucrative ports of Tangiers and Bombay. Yes! The Portuguese gifted Bombay to the British as dowry. The princess loved tea, and having grown up drinking tea regularly at the Portuguese court, she carried crates of tea as part of her personal belongings. It is said that crates carrying tea leaves were marked Transporte de Ervas Aromaticas (Transport of Aromatic Herbs) – later abbreviated to T.E.A, giving it the name that it bears. In England at that point in time, tea was found sporadically in apothecaries, where it was sold as a medicinal drink, an Asian drug with potential health benefits rather than as a beverage.
It happened then as it happens now. People imitate what famous people do. Queen Catherine, upon her relocation to England, became a trendsetter – a royal influencer, and her daily tea drinking transformed public perception of the beverage almost overnight. When she introduced her elaborate tea rituals, served in fine porcelain cups, accompanied by confections and small delicacies, aristocratic Englishwomen took immediate note. In 1663, the poet and politician Edmund Waller wrote a poem in honour of the queen for her birthday:
The best of Queens, the best of herbs, we owe
To that bold nation, which the way did show
To the fair region where the sun doth rise,
Whose rich productions we so justly prize.
The Muse's friend, tea does our fancy aid,
Regress those vapours which the head invade,
And keep the palace of the soul serene,
Fit on her birthday to salute the Queen.
By the late 1660s, tea had become one of the defining social markers of English high society. Traders of the East India Company imported it and made it available in England. It, however, continued to be a luxury item as the ability to serve tea at home meant access to exotic goods and familiarity with cosmopolitan tastes. The teapot, tea tray, sugar tongs and porcelain cups became symbols of elitism. Tea drinking was especially embraced by women, shaping new rituals of sociability.
By the 18th century, tea had transcended aristocratic circles and entered the daily lives of the English middle class. However, tea was heavily taxed and thus largely smuggled into England. Then came Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, who in 1784, on the advice of Richard Twining, reduced the tax on tea from around 119% to 12.5%, mainly to cut smuggling and raise taxes through honest imports. The legal import of tea is said to have tripled in the subsequent year. Twinings, the Tea company set up by Richard Twining’s grandfather, Thomas Twining, is still famous for its teas and also for its landmark tea shop in London, opened in 1706.
Tea also became a driver of British imperial expansion. In the nineteenth century, Britain developed tea plantations in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and then later in parts of Africa, permanently linking tea to British colonial economics. In India, once it started growing in larger quantities, the fancy for tea caught on and spread all across the sub-continent. Each part of India added their flavour and peculiarity to it, making it the most popular beverage. Today, India is the second-largest producer and consumer of tea in the world.
What about Portugal? Did Portugal forget tea? No. The Portuguese still relish it, call it ‘Cha’, and Portugal is the only country in Europe that grows tea in commercial quantities. It is grown on the island of San Miguel in the Azores by the ‘Gorreana Tea Company’, which was started in 1883. It continues to be a family run business and is run by the descendants of the original owners. They grow, pack and sell their organic teas that are processed on ‘Made in India’ machines that they imported from Calcutta 110 years ago.
Soft power has the effect of spreading cultural practices. These then evolve and even change hands over time. It was Ming China and Tokugawa Japan that gave tea to the Portuguese. From Portugal, it reached England, not through conquest or trade but through the quiet influence of a Portuguese queen whose fondness for the drink reshaped English tastes. Tea became “British” and, over time, overshadowed the Portuguese link. Today, tea is more “Indian” than any other drink or nationality. However, if Catherine of Braganza had not taken tea as dowry with her, would the United Kingdom‘s national drink have been different today? Would India be drinking something else? These questions have no answers. The flows of history determined these. From Catherine of Braganza’s courtly tea sessions to the industrial kettles of Victorian factories, from high tea to roadside chai, from boardrooms to college canteens, tea has integrated itself into everyday lives. Yet behind every sip of tea lies a reminder that cultural traditions often begin with the meeting of worlds, the blending of histories and the unexpected influence of individuals.
The author is India's Ambassador to Portugal
