or, possibly, tall and thin or shaped like a cat. Teapots are for more than holding tea Tea is one of the world’s oldest beverages and, after water, its most popular. Legend has it that the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung discovered the brew 5,000 years ago when tea leaves blew into a pot of boiling water, creating a delicious aroma. Since then the variety of teas and the design of teapots have improved considerably. As trade routes to the West opened, merchants brought “cha” ( in Cantonese ) or “te” ( as it was called in Fukien ) with them by land and sea. Venice was a centre for trading in spices from the East, which it obtained in Alexandria and sold to merchants from western Europe. First mentioned in Venetian literature in 1559, Chinese tea came to Holland, France and England by the mid-17th century. And so did Chinese redware teapots in imaginative shapes, sporting dragon spouts and serpent handles. Soon tea was fashionable with the upper classes. In the early 18th century, when the Meissen factory succeeded in producing porcelain as fine as that made by the Chinese, exquisite novelty teapots shaped like monkeys and chickens were created. In England, more utilitarian salt-glazed novelty teapots resembling camels, horses and squirrels were made. Coffee, another hot drink introduced in Europe at about the same time, also required the creation of a completely new range of containers, but coffee pots have never rivalled the eccentricity of the novelty teapots produced over the centuries. Tea gained in popularity, despite occasional setbacks. In 1773 Britain’s East India Company gained the right to import tea into the American Colonies without paying duty, thus reducing the price to consumers. American middlemen, fearing financial ruin, manipulated public opinion and organized publicity stunts. In one, Americans dressed as Mohawks boarded three import ships off Boston and threw tea chests into the harbour. As news of the “tea party” spread, discontent with the British grew so rapidly that it resulted in a regime change, otherwise known as the American Revolution. In 1833 the trading monopoly of the East India Company ended, and any merchant was free to trade in China tea. Competition to be the first to bring tea from China to the Tea Exchange in London led to the design of fast clipper ships that reduced the journey time by half. The first clipper was the Rainbow, launched in New York in 1845. In 1850 the American clipper Oriental did the voyage from Hong Kong and around the southern tip of Africa to London in only 97 days. The opening of the Suez Ca-nal in 1869, and the arrival of steam ships, ended this era abruptly. By 1890 plantations in India and Sri Lanka were providing the world market with much of its supply, and only a third of the tea drunk in Britain came from China. In 1904 Thomas Sullivan, a New York merchant who wrapped loose tea in bags for restaurants, saw a marketing opportunity when he realized chefs were brewing his tea in the bag. But the first patent for a tea bag went to Thomas Lipton. Also in 1904, Richard Blechynden, an English plantation owner, added ice to his tea at the St. Louis World’s Fair when a heat wave drove visitors away from his booth. This novelty, iced tea, brought them back again. Recent news coverage of possible links between tea drinking and cancer prevention, the lowering of blood pressure, the reduction of tooth decay, and the supposed medicinal benefits of herbal teas have all increased interest in the bever-age. Meanwhile, in China, they are rediscovering tea after several years of guzzling Coca Cola, coffee and other bever-ages from the West. Upscale tea shops, the invention of bubble tea and even a tea theme park in Fujian province are drawing the Chinese back to the drink discovered there some 5,000 years ago.
Coffee gifts including coffee machines and coffee pods
