HISTORY
A Thirst For Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World
Erika Rappaport
Princeton University Press, $79
It has never been enough for tea just to taste good. Or be refreshing. Or a catalyst for conversation. Throughout its long history, people have gone to great lengths to spruik its beneficial qualities. In China in 780, Lu Yu compiled his Classic of Tea, arguing that tea stimulated the mental faculties and cured diseases. Not only that, it promoted "the liveliness of poetic feelings" and "subtly awakens... pure thoughts". That's a lot of bang for each cup.
![Bandsmen of the A.I.F. drink tea during a break while training at Sydney's Prince Alfred Park in 1942.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180204010717im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/z/a/1/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gyzbfo.png/1508412281508.jpg)
In the centuries since, tea promotions have stuck with the "good for you" argument. In the 12th century, a Buddhist monk extolled tea as "a miraculous technique for extending one's lifespan". Five centuries on, a founding member of Britain's Royal Society translated a Chinese text claiming that tea purified the liver and prevented consumption. The mid-1930s saw the launch of a long running "Tea Revives You" campaign, accompanied by a jovial Mr T. Pott (and his Cuplets). Then Gracie Fields, England's music-hall queen, was featured on posters suggesting, somewhat alarmingly, "A Cup of Tea Downs the Droops".
In wartime, ads went global: "Tea Revives the World". George Orwell put his kettle on and decided that the essence of British life was "the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the 'nice cup of tea"'. Propaganda pictures showed brave boys queuing for a mug in Egypt. Doing his bit for the war effort, fashion photographer Cecil Beaton snapped an incongruously shirtless member of HM Forces raising a cup in front of a sign saying "The Soldiers' Drink".
![Frank Sinatra contemplates a cup of tea as he is met by reporters at Sydney Airport in 1961.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180204010717im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/z/b/5/d/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gyzbfo.png/1508412281508.jpg)
The story of tea is the story of colonialism. And commerce. And empire building. Erika Rappaport, a proponent of what she calls a "commodity-centred approach" to history, argues that tea "charts the history of several interconnected transnational communities ... united by a powerful belief that tea was not just a plant or a beverage but a civilising force that healed bodies, nations, and world problems".
But it was neither an ad nor a compelling table of export figures that prompted her to start studying the tea-leaves. No, it was a photograph of Frank Sinatra, apparently sipping from a cuppa during a concert at London's Royal Albert Hall, which she found gracing the cover of the annual report of the UK Tea Council in 1975. How, she wondered, had Sinatra ended up promoting tea?
It's appropriate that this photo was taken in England, as Britain floats in a sea of tea. Which is surprising, as the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) is totally unsuited to its climate. It must be imported. Rappaport depicts the history of tea as one of opportunism and economics and, often, exploitation of primary producers. "Tea had grown and been consumed in Assam long before the British arrived," she writes, "but the British Empire transformed the region into a vast tea garden able to satisfy world markets. This was a sordid business."
As Britain's reach extended across the globe, so too did the taste for tea. By the 1930s, 70 per cent of tea was produced in the Empire. Much of it went to Australia, renowned as "one of the greatest tea-drinking countries in the world". But why? The climate is hardly conducive to the brewing of hot drinks. Then again, the first colonists had arrived as confirmed tea-drinkers. Later, it became accepted that locals liked their tea strong enough to tan a horse's hide. Billy tea was a uniquely Australian innovation that would have bemused Victorian-era marketing folk who sold tea as a civilised beverage that "cheers but does not inebriate".
![A Goldenia Tea sign in Leichhardt acts as a backdrop for an impromptu cricket match.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180204010717im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/z/9/x/i/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gyzbfo.png/1508412281508.jpg)
Without tea there could not have been afternoon teas, an excuse to consume mountains of sweet stuff. When World War I necessitated belt-tightening in Britain and "The Cake and Pastry Order" banned the manufacture and sale of fancy pastries, cafe proprietors protested that "afternoon tea was a democratic meal enjoyed by men and women of all classes, and as such it aided the war effort". One officer, meanwhile, declared his men "would put up with almost any deprivation as long as they had their tea".
Rappaport's focus on commodities comes at the expense of people. More would have been welcome, for example, on Sir Thomas Lipton, a Scot and "the most famous grocer to exploit the mass market". In the late-19th century, Sir Thomas decided the US represented "a practically limitless market for an enterprising merchant confident in his wares". He journeyed there only to find that "to all intents and purposes there was no tea-trade in America". Seeking refreshment at his hotel, he asked for tea only to have the waiter look at him "in blank amazement". Little has changed since.
![A Thirst For Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World, by Erika Rappaport.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180204010717im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/z/b/0/b/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gyzbfo.png/1508412281508.jpg)
The US has often vexed those in the tea trade. Because of the Boston Tea Party (resentment to taxes imposed in London), tea was regarded as a precursor to revolution. But by 1843 the ladies of Cincinnati hosted former president John Quincy Adams at a Temperance Tea attended by 5000 people. By then, "American business was heavily involved in the tea trade and the beverage no longer carried any threat to ... independence". The next century, gridiron players featured in US ads accompanied by the slogan "For Vitality, Turn to Tea Today". Tea was also portrayed as part of feminine English culture that American women could enjoy.
After the 1930s, when home refrigerators became common in the US, fruit syrups were added and iced tea took off. Long before hip-hop, Mr T. Pott became Mr Ice Cube. Then the US flooded the world with its own drinks. Visiting South Africa in 1947, a member of the International Tea Market Expansion Board reported his alarm "at the obvious inroads competitive beverages are making into tea's natural market. I refer especially to the Coca-Cola Company... It was quite a common sight to see an extremely smartly dressed woman ... sucking a Coca-Cola from a bottle." This was a sticky sort of cultural imperialism. By the mid-1960s, even Britons were consuming less tea, prompting a BBC commentator to ask: "Tea drinkers of Britain, could we have braved the Blitz with instant coffee?"
For all its heft – more than 400 pages, plus another 140 for notes and an index, which means many mugs are required to get through this book – much is missing. The contemporary boom in herbal teas is ignored, and the reader is left wondering how or why Earl Grey and Queen Anne ended up with their names on packets of tea (which first appeared in the 19th century). Tea-bags, meanwhile, receive short shrift. The company founded by Joseph Tetley introduced tea-bags before World War II. By the 1950s, however, ads presented these as an American innovation, "The Modern Way to Make Delicious Tea". They were convenient for busy people or a housewife wanting just one cup.
For all her academic rigour, it is surprising that Rappaport has taken that photo of Ol' Blue Eyes at the Albert Hall on trust. Was he indeed sipping a "cup that cheers", as the Tea Council claimed, or something stronger? The name "Sinatra" is synonymous with many drinks, but not tea. When he wearily sings Set 'em up, Joe in One For My Baby ... he's not talking about Twinings. Cranky Franky would not have tolerated Mr T. Pott. Though he might have made a move on a Cuplet.
Alan Attwood is a former editor of The Big Issue and habitual maker and consumer of tea.