Storm in a Teacup: A Visual History of Tea (I)

The Tea Table. James Pittendrigh MacGillivray. 1885. (Photo: credit: Museums & Galleries Edinburgh – City of Edinburgh Council)

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By Staff Middle Land

February 7, 2024
5:10 pm
Los Angeles, CA

by Anne Wallentine To dunk or not to dunk, that is the question. Tea is quite a conundrum: it is an uplifting social drink that has caused all manner of chaos,from devastating colonial exploitation to mere ‘violent disputes’ over its brewing methods, as George Orwell wrote. Tea fuelled centuries of imperial expansion, exploitation and industrialisation. But, cup by cup, it has also facilitated social unity and compassion (or at least offered a solution to any awkward dilemma). Because of these economic and social effects, the UK remains one of the top tea-consuming countries, downing approximately 100 million cups each day. Depictions in art and advertisements show how tea has become intertwined with British history and identity, uniting consumers in a shared national story while distinguishing social values in the

by Anne Wallentine

To dunk or not to dunk, that is the question.

Tea Leaves;, Alma Gogin (née Broadbridge), (1854–1948) (Photo: York Museums Trust)

Tea is quite a conundrum:

The Brown Tea Pot, Gwen John (1876–1939). (Photo: Yale Center for British Art)

it is an uplifting social drink that has caused all manner of chaos,from devastating colonial exploitation to mere ‘violent disputes’ over its brewing methods, as George Orwell wrote.

Tea fuelled centuries of imperial expansion, exploitation and industrialisation. But, cup by cup, it has also facilitated social unity and compassion (or at least offered a solution to any awkward dilemma).

Because of these economic and social effects, the UK remains one of the top tea-consuming countries, downing approximately 100 million cups each day. Depictions in art and advertisements show how tea has become intertwined with British history and identity, uniting consumers in a shared national story while distinguishing social values in the many methods of sharing a cup.

unknown artist; Tea Plant (Camellia Sinensis): Flowering Stem; Wellcome Collection; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/tea-plant-camellia-sinensis-flowering-stem-241679

What is tea?

As shown in this botanical drawing, the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) produces flowers, but its leaves are used to produce the drink. They are withered, dried, and oxidised in different ways to create the varied kinds of tea we know today. Tea naturally contains caffeine, which stimulates energy, and tannins, whose antimicrobial properties may have contributed to tea’s early medic

A Chinese Ceremony with Tea and Rice Bowls, Unknown artist. (photo: Wellcome Collection)

Tea was first cultivated in China, with references to its use dating from the first millennium BC. A legend attributes its discovery to the mythical emperor Shennong. Initially used as medicine, and occasionally in food, tea became popular as a beverage during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Throughout the centuries, paintings illustrated tea’s evolving ceremonial and domestic uses, as well as its associations with respect, status and sophistication.

A Couple Drinking Tea, Chinese Schoo. (Photo: Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Gallerie)

n the eighth century, tea spread to Japan via Buddhist monks. The country developed its own unique tea culture, formalising the aesthetic and philosophical ritual of the tea ceremony in the sixteenth century. Its spatial harmony and focused simplicity are evinced in a woodblock print by Mizuno Toshikata showing the ‘daily practice of the tea ceremony’.

Chanoyu hibigusa (Daily practice of the tea ceremony) Mizuno, Toshikata . Woodblock Print 1896-7 (Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum)

Tea and colonialism

As global trade expanded, tea arrived in Europe in the early 1600s, and in England by the 1650s. ‘The beverage soon became a necessity of life – a taxable matter,’ scholar Okakura Kazukō wrote. England’s subsequent commerce in tea lit the fuse of American independence, caused devastating social and economic effects in China, and drove the violent colonisation of India.

East India Company Ships at Deptford, British (English) School. (Photo: ;National Maritime Museum)

The monopolistic East India Company founded its colonial trade routes in 1600 and aggressively established commercial and then military control in India. Though chartered to join the spice trade there and in southeast Asia, they expanded their remit to transporting enslaved people from Africa and trading with China and the American territories.

At its height, tea accounted for 60 per cent of the company’s trade, and tea duties for 10 per cent of the British government’s revenue – affording the company, and tea, an extreme influence on economic and political policy.

The company’s lobbying led to a significant change in tea taxation that would give them an advantage in North American trade. In protest, American colonists held a tea party in Boston Harbour in 1773 that instigated the American War of Independence. Popular prints immortalised the scene of tea chests being thrown into the water under less-than-ideal brewing conditions.

The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor, (active 19th C) (Photo: Library of Congress, public domain)

At the height of England’s tea trade with China in the late eighteenth century, figures of Chinese tea tasters stood on the parapet of a tea warehouse in Stafford, a testament to China’s dominance of the industry.

Chinese Tea-Taster, Unknown artist. (Photo: Staffordshire Museum & Art Collection)

Though the British were eager to buy, they chafed at China’s strict foreign trade regulations and lack of interest in British exports, which caused a significant trade imbalance.

The East India Company decided to finance the tea trade by illegally exporting opium, triggering the mid-nineteenth-century Opium Wars when the Chinese government tried to suppress the drug. Not only did the wars cause reverberating damage to the Chinese government and economy, but the disruptions in tea supply (and the end of its monopoly in China) further determined the East India Company to develop tea plantations in Assam.

Two Indian Men: Left, a Man Bringing a Cup of Tea or Other Drink; Right, a Man Holding a Large Purple Fan or Canopy on a Pole. Unknown artist. (Photo: Wellcome Collection)

Paintings of pickers and plantations show how tea was grown, harvested, and shipped in various locales, but rarely the realities of the industry. In Assam, indentured tea labourers worked under notoriously harmful and coercive conditions. But as the industry grew across the continent, these practices were shrouded by cheery, promotional imagery of predominantly women tea-pickers in picturesque fields.

ARTWORKS Indian Tea Plantation, an European Lady and Gentleman on Horseback Approach the Main House, Where a Number of People Await Their Arrival. Unknown artist. (Photo: Wellcome Collection)

Tea-Drying in Mr Hölle’s Establishment, Java. Marianne North (1830–1890).(Photo: The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)

A page of languid sketches of a Tamil village and tea plantation from around 1889 centres a woman gracefully picking tea.

Six Scenes from a Tamil Village and Neigbouring Tea Plantatio. John Percival Gülich. (Photo: Wellcome Collection)

Flurried brushstrokes and vivid colours create more movement in Ceylonese Tea Pickers by Edward Atkinson Hornel, but the artist’s interest seems to lie more in technique than in documenting the workers’ features or conditions.

The human aspects of the tea trade were often glossed over, but numerous paintings commemorated the economic prowess and naval power that their labour built. Tea clippers like the Cutty Sark were designed for speed to meet growing demand in the nineteenth century.

The Clipper ‘Cutty Sark’. John Fraser (1858–1927). (Photo: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)

But once the tea arrived, British consumers saw only what was in their cups. Tea plantations – and the people who produced tea – were often exoticised and distanced from the domestic British imagery of tea until the twentieth century.

Original article: Art UK

To be continued