Tea and Culture--Part 2

Have you ever gone into a tea shop that sells loose teas and admired the rows of tea in glass containers? They usually have the most wonderful artwork on the labels! Usually the pictures try to capture some of the essence of the tea--caravans of camels, British nobles, etc. But frequently, you see labels with pictures of sailing ships on them. Were these teas drunk by sailors?

The sailing ship is actually hearkening back to an exciting time in tea history. After the British were overcome with tea fever, the arrival of the first shipments of the season from the Far East was a very important event. There was a tea exchange in London where the arriving teas were auctioned off. You can imagine that a population starving for tea was willing to pay top dollar (or in this case "pound") for the first tea to make it to market.

The tea companies knew this, and they would use the fastest ships and the best crews to race from the Far East, around the Cape of Good Hope and up the Thames. The Clipper Ships soon came to dominate the tea trade due to their great speed. There were many famous races and many famous ships. Sometimes, the ships would race up the Thames within minutes of each other.

If you are admiring the ship on a container of tea, if the ship has a black hull, it is the Cutty Sark, the fastest Clipper Ship of them all. So you can impress your friends by not only knowing why there is a ship advertising tea, but knowing the ship's name as well!

Interestingly enough, this most famous tea clipper still exists! The Cutty Sark has been preserved in Greenwich, England. It was unfortunately damaged in a recent fire, but will be restored so we can all enjoy this important piece of tea history. For more information see www.cuttysark.org.uk