Based on the work of Tom Standage, "A History of the World in Six Glasses" this exploration of three beverages: Tea, Chocolate and Coffee, asks participants to consider what role slavery, war, empire and bloody conflict has had in the history of our favorite warm bevvies. By Professor Whitney Howarth, New Hampshire

1. The Hot Drinks Revolution
by
Dr. Whitney Howarth
Plymouth State University
N.H. Humanities Council
April 2nd 2021
Virtual via The Zoooooom!

2. What comes to mind
when you think of tea?
Put your reply in the chat

3. A person from your past?

5. Tea
A landscape? …

6. What country do you think of when
you think of a cup of tea?

7. Where does tea come from?

8. Where is most tea grown today?
• http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-
worlds-top-10-tea-producing-nations.html
5) Turkey
4) Sri Lanka
3) Kenya
2) India 1.2 m tons/yr
1) CHINA 2.4 tons/yr

9. Tea history…
But for many of us, when we think of tea, we don’t
think about China tea or even tea from India…
why not?
How many of you think about
BLOODSHED, DEATH ``````````````` and WAR
when you think of tea… ??
No one?
*phew*

10. But maybe we should?

12. What is the setting for a tea party?

13. What type of person sips tea?

14. What feelings does tea evoke?

15. Who should drinks tea, girls or boys?

17. What does tea represent?

18. Camellia sinensis
"originated in Asia, specifically in the foothills of
the Himalayas, northeast India, north Burma,
southwest China and Tibet.

19. By 1000 BCE, there were tea farms in Yunnan and Sichuan

20. Chai
Tea in China

21. Chinese teapot,
1680
Porcelain
Peabody Essex
Museum,
Salem, Mass.

22. CHINESE MYTHOF THE ORIGIN OF
TEA…
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okeOWsA5X
FQ
• Shen Nung (Emperor of China 2737 BCE)
• was on a journey, when a few leaves from a wild
tea tree fell into his hot water.
• He tasted the mixture out of curiosity and liked
its taste and its restorative properties. He then
found that tea leaves eliminated numerous
other poisons from the body.
• Because of this, tea is considered one of the
earliest Chinese medicines.
This myth is probably untrue, first historic
reference of tea by Buddhist monks in China
dates back to 6th century BCE,
mentioned as an aid to meditation…

23. Tea, at first, was harvested from wild bushes.
Tea was a stimulant to help folks stay awake during
meditation.
Tea was also seen as a medicine

24. Bodhidharma’s eyelids and Lau Tzu’s famous tea break

25. Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE)
Tea wide-spread throughout China and
considered the National beverage!

26. Emperor Lu Yu (733-804)

27. Lu Yu wrote “The Classic of Tea”
780 CE
Table of Contents:
• 2.1 One: Origin (一之源)
• 2.2 Two: Tools (二之具)
• 2.3 Three: Making (三之造)
• 2.4 Four: Utensils (四之器)
• 2.5 Five: Boiling (五之煮)
• 2.6 Six: Drinking (六之飲)
• 2.7 Seven: History (七之事)
• 2.8 Eight: Growing Regions (八之出)
• 2.9 Nine: Simplify (九之略)
• 2.10 Ten: Pictorialize (十之圖)

31. Brick tea = currency $$$

32. Mongols prefer…
Koumiss

33. First European to sip tea?
Maybe this guy?
Afonso, a Portuguese knight
1503 in Kochi, India
The Ming treasure fleet
brought tea to India in
1400’s

34. The Portuguese are the 1st Euros to
trade tea:

35. No spice lust? No Tea…
“If they were only to take "Malaca" out of the hands
of the Moors (Muslims),
Cairo and Mecca would be entirely ruined,
and Venice would then be able to obtain no [spices]
except what her merchants might buy in Portugal.”
— Report on Albuquerque's words on his
arriving to Malacca

36. Port City of Malacca (Malaysia) 1511

37. Goa India, 1540.
Portuguese noble man proposes to Indian Christian woman.

38. The Portuguese establish special trade privilege with China in the city of Macau.
Dutch must buy tea from the Portuguese and not from the Celestial Empire directly.
1557
To
1684

39. 1640’s

41. Dutch 1st bring tea to Europe, 1610
France buys tea from Dutch, 1630’s
tea reaches England in 1650’s

42. Simon Pauli
• German Doctor
• 1635, publication on tea
“Transporting tea from China
made it poisonous”
“…it hastens death of those
that drink, especially if they
have passed the age of 40 yrs.”
He fought against “the
madness of importing
Tea…”

43. Nikolas Dirx, Dutch Doctor, 1641 wrote:
“Those that use it… are exempt from all maladies and reach an
extreme old age…”
Bonntekoe, another Dutch doc, recommended:
several cups each day for the entire nation! We urge every man,
woman and child to drink it every day, if possible, every hour;
10 cups a day (limit 200 cups/day)!

44. English East India Company founded 1600 and brought
tea from Dutch islands 1650’s in very small amounts.
East India Company (E.I.C.) was a
JOINT STOCK TRADING company of
PRIVATE MERCHANTS
CHARTER from the Queen of
England
Private merchants joined together
to sail to India & China to buy:
*Textiles (cotton/silk cloth)
*Porcelain
*Spices (pepper, cloves, cinnamon)
And… later, TEA!

45. Catherine of Braganza
makes tea popular
• Portuguese Princess
• Married King Charles II of England
• 1662 wedding dowry:
– Port cities: Tangiers and Bombayities
– And a small chest of tea leaves!
SHE LOVED TEA! Sipped it from thimble sized cups!
– Made tea drinking popular at English court…
By the end of the 1700’s, everyone was drinking tea!

48. 1706, English
Advertisement:
Prevents consumption
and assuages the pains
of the Bowels or griping
of the Guts or Looseness.
Especially when
prepared with a bit of
milk…

49. $$$ TEA $$$
Mid 1660’s, profit on ONE TON of tea equaled several years’
wages for an East India Company ship captain!
1660: ONE pound of tea cost up to 10 English pounds!
1700: One pound of tea cost as little as 1 pound for cheap tea!
**Poor family earned only 20 pounds a year**

50. Tea with milk & sugar by 1700’s:
WHY?
Milk protects the
drinker and cup from
the hot tea.
More people
drinking black tea
Black tea more bitter
than green.
Black lasts longer
when shipping it
from China.
Black tea safer with
impurities
(added to fake green
tea to “stretch the
tea”)

51. Meanwhile on the other side of the
planet…

52. 1502: Columbus encountered a great Mayan trading
canoe carrying cocoa beans as cargo.

53. Aztecs called it "xocalatl" meaning
warm or bitter liquid

54. Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico 1519
(early 16th-century indigenous pictorial
manuscript of the conquest of Mexico.)

55. Cortes more concerned about…

56. 1500 BCE: The Olmec Indians are
believed to be the first to grow cocoa
beans as a crop.

57. Aztecs used cacao beans as currency

58. 1544: Mayans serve King of Spain
hot cocoa (popular among Domincan friars)

59. 1520’s: Cortes and others set up cocoa plantations in
Mexico, Venezuela, Jamaica & Hispaniola
The first enslaved Africans were
brought to Hispaniola in 1501 to
grow sugar on Spanish plantations
Sugar is an Asian plant.
Hispaniola: today Haiti and Dominican Republic
Over the course of the next 350+ years
over 12 million enslaved Africans will
grow cash crops in the Americas on
plantations. Mostly sugar for white
people’s sweet tooth: for tea, coffee,
cocoa, pies, cakes and puddings.

60. Spain began importing Chocolate 1585 and it became
popular among elites in Paris and Amsterdam by the 1620’s
It will be married to cinnamon, honey, sugar by royal chefs,
but not consumed among commoners until the arrival of
cafes and cheap sugar (thanks to slavery) in the mid 1600’s…

61. 1657: Chocolate is 1st served in Europe in London at
the “Coffee Mill and Tobacco Roll” coffeehouse.

62. 1650: 1st Coffee Shop in England
opens in Oxford. 1652 1st in London.
1657: Hot chocolate served in
London coffee shop for the 1st time.
1662: Tea becomes popular in the
English Court.
1706: Wet and Dry Tea served at
Tom’s coffeehouse by Tom Twinings
"New and curious treatises of
coffee, tea and chocolate“ by
Philippe Dufour, 1685

63. HOT DRINKS REVOLUTION!?
Tea, coffee, chocolate become widely known in England at about the same
time. From China, Arabia, America… to Europe but all are:
-Bitter
-Were not served with sweeteners in original home (but all much better with)
-Heated in liquid form
-Stimulants (drink drugs!)
-Often deemed as medicinal first 200 years of consumption
-Deemed luxury drinks of the elites, then become common
-Are non-alcoholic
-Are not nutritious (calorie empty)
-Come to Europe before SUGAR becomes easily available, cheap
-Rivals to wine/beer as the breakfast bevvie of choice (1700’s)
-Desired by poor, later preferred by them to other drinks
-Make a cold cheap meal of bread and butter feel like a hot meal
-Can be sipped in a dish for less than a penny in a public house with friends
-Brings clarity (caffeine) rather than DRUNKEN HAZE or… violence!

64. Coffeehouse or alehouse?
Which is a more dangerous place?

65. Why were Euros slow to adopt the
coffee drinking habit?

66. Coffee’s religious opponents argued…
coffee was evil. The devil’s drink!
WHY??

67. Coffee seen as the Muslim drink!
"Coffee is so delicious it
would be a pity to let
the infidels have
exclusive use of it."
-- Pope Clement VIII,
1605

68. Pasqua Rosee of Armenia, 1652
first coffee shop in London

69. Coffee houses opened in Britain by
1650 and Amsterdam 1660.

70. King Charles II of England restored to thrown
1660
Puritan Sir Oliver Cromwell (d. 1658)
ruled England after executing King Charles
the First. Coffee got its start in England.
Cafes well it, full of books & nice furniture,
unlike dark dirty taverns. Political debates.
The Restoration, 1660.
His supporters had met in coffee shops
under Cromwell to plot King’s return
1st coffee house 1652 in London.
Respectable place to DO BUSINESS…
By 1663,
83 coffee houses!

71. By 1700, there may have been as many as 3000
coffee houses in London.
Selling up to 600 dishes a day!
City population 600,000 at the time.

72. Anti-coffee Women 1674

73. Enfeebling and drying…

74. Reply from men in 17th century?
Some claimed coffee was, in fact, the Viagra of
the day: making "the erection more vigorous,
the ejaculation more full, adding a spiritual
ascendency to the sperm".

75. Tea was was so expensive in 1600’s…
WHY did it get CHEAPER??
• One cup of tea = 5 cups of coffee in 1600’s
• After early 1700’s… trading posts in China opened to
Brits! Direct trade cheaper than middleman trade.
• Even Cheaper after 1784 WHY??
Brits defeat Dutch in wars, Dutch East India Co.
ends its monopoly, English Co. has MONOPOLY:
CHEAP TEA FOR ALL !!! Hoorayyy!!!
Coffee Cheaper Than Tea

76. By mid 1700’s, tea = 60% of company’s trade!
Tax on that tea = 10% of British govt. revenue!
Like the oil and gas companies of their day!
Lots of money to be made on taxing tea…

77. ENGLAND GOESE CRAZY FOR TEA
Beginning of 1700’s only the wealthy
in the Royal Court drank tea…
• BUT by 1799, everybody in England drank it! Twice a day!
1699 = 6 tons a year imported
1799 = 11,000 tons a year
BLACK TEA vs. GREEN TEA
(same plant, diff process)
Black more popular in England… durable on long
ship journey.

78. Tea and Identity
• British Identity & rituals of consumption
• Who drinks tea?
• Gender and Class distinctions
• Ceremony and sophistication

79. Josiah Wedgewood China (1780’s)

80. Catherine Queen of Russia, celebrity
endorsement for Wedgewood China.

82. Tea gardens: elaborate, sophisticated public venues
where one might meet members of the opposite sex
Moralists warned of the seductive dangers lurking at the Vauxhall gardens!
Moralists warned of the seductive dangers lurking at the Vauxhall gardens (Image: NC)

83. Vauxhall Tea Garden, London, 1732
A park with lit walkways, bandstands, performers and
stalls to sell food (bread and butter) and tea!

84. Sex and Tea !?!

85. 1773: Boston tea party

86. Not this tea party!

87. 1773 Boston Tea
Party
Americans didn’t like EIC
monopoly on tea trade.

90. But Americans loved trading with the
Caribbean for molasses & sugar
• Smuggling molasses from French islands
• Molasses made into RUM for slave trade
• New Englanders trading butter, furniture, cod,
rope, candles, chocolate, farming tools, to
slave plantations in Caribbean.

91. 60% of slaves imported to South America

92. Work of the enslaved:
• Sugar Plantations 6,000,000 54.5%
• Coffee Plantations 2,000,000 18.2%
• Mines 1,000,000 9.1%
• Domestic Labor 1,000,000 9.1%
• Cotton Fields 500,000 4.5%
• Cocoa Fields 250,000 2.3%
• Building 250,000 2.3%
• Total 11,000,000 100.0
http://www.slaverysite.com/Body/facts%20and%20figures.htm by Dr. Neil Frankel

93. The “Middle Passage”
Conditions
Mortality Rates
Business strategies
Psychological Trauma

94. Trauma of Slavery

95. Empires of Coffee
French and Venetians ship from Egypt.
Dutch from Mocha
Fear of foreign (Arab) dependency… Euros
want their own supplies.
Dutch stole cuttings from Arab trees.
Cultivated coffee in green houses in
Amsterdam!
Dutch plantations by 1690 in (Java)
Indonesia
Arabs sterilize beans – keep coffee
plantations secret.
Frenchman Gabriel De Clieu, 1723
Introduces coffee to the Caribbean
By stealing a cutting from the King’s
Coffee bush. A present from the
Dutch – snuck out by royal Doc!

96. A long journey!
De Clieu carried his plant to deck every day for sun, saved it from a mysterious
thieving Dutchmen, a fight with pirates, a broken glass case, a violent storm, near
death by sea water. In the end, he gave his water ration to the plant so it might live!
Planted it upon arrival, established a guard to watch it, 2 yrs later: berries!

97. Coffee from cuttings
He sent coffee plants to Santo Domingo, Guadeloupe – then exports to France by 1730.
Dutch bring coffee to Latin America (colony of Suriname) …
Descendants of that ONE PLANT: coffee in Haiti, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Venezuela!

98. Brazil becomes coffee king by 1840’s

99. WHY?

100. Brazil got coffee via a secret seduction…
• The first coffee bush in Brazil was planted by
Francisco de Melo Palheta in 1727.
• According to the legend, the Portuguese were
looking for a cut of the coffee market, but
could not obtain seeds from bordering French
Guiana due to the governor's unwillingness to
export the seeds.
• Palheta was sent to French Guiana on a
diplomatic mission to resolve a border dispute.
• On his way back home, he managed to
smuggle the seeds into Brazil by seducing the
governor's wife who secretly gave him a
bouquet spiked with seeds!

101. Caffeine and the Industrial Revolution

106. Which beverage do you want your
factory workers to be drinking on the
job?

107. Tea as anti-bacterial

108. Urbanization: Growth of cities, factories,
tenement housing

109. The sophistication of the high class: tea sets

111. What happens when factory workers start
getting tea sets too?

112. Tea Time, a meal at 4 p.m. in England

113. “High Tea”

114. Opium and Tea, mid 1800’s

115. Poppy seed

116. 1st Opium War
1839-1842
2nd Opium War
1856 and 1860

118. Assam
By the end of the
1800’s tea had beat
out both coffee and
chocolate, and often
beer as the beverage
of choice in England
Why? India..

119. INDIA: The Assam Company, est. 1839.
Today: http://www.assamco.com/heritage.html
“The tea industry in Assam owes its origins to a river
gunboat commander called Charles Alexander Bruce.
In 1825 he braved the mighty Brahmaputra to sow
the seeds of the tea plant in the wilderness of Assam.”
First tea company in the world set up by a deed
of the British Parliament
First company to be awarded the Royal Charter
by Queen Victoria in 1845
First company in the world to establish tea
gardens
First company to brand premium blends
First company to export tea to rest of world

121. Imperialism
& Tea
*English conquer territories
*Army installs puppet king in region
*Indigenous taxed & evicted from lands
*Forcibly settled on plantations
*Labeled “criminal” for resisting
*Brutal conditions, violent abuse
*Brits import Chinese & Bengali workers
*A few decades before profitable but at
what cost to human life & culture?
After 40 yrs, by 1872, the
production cost of a pound of tea
was roughly the same in India
and China. British won! 
Natives lost 