The origin of tea as a beverage is unknown and is purely a matter of speculation based upon the ancient traditions of China, India and Japan. Each of these three countries has a separate story. China claims that the discovery must be attributed to the Emperor Sheng Nung in 2737 B.C—By P.E. William, condensed from a broadcast over Station ZBW, Hongkong. Apart from all mythical traditions, there seems to be no doubt that the Shan tribes on the Yunnan-Burma border and the Nagas of the Patkoi Mountains between Burma and Assam knew all about the properties of the tea plant. Wild tea, in the natural form of trees, has been growing in these regions for century In the eighth century tea drinking had become prevalent all over China, In the year A.D. 780 a certain writer, Lu Vu, was commissioned by various Chinese tea merchants to write a treatise on tea. This book was called "Cha Ching." We may consider this to be the first piece of propaganda on the part of the tea trade, a business which has expanded down the years until, at present, the International Tea Committee spends £400,000 annually on tea propaganda.
It is believed that the first consignment of tea reached Europe from China in a cargo for Holland in 1610, This was exported from Macao. In 1618, the first tea caravan reached Russia by the overland route, By the middle of the seventeenth century, tea was being sold in London in a coffee house belonging to a certain Thomas Garraway. In 1660 Samuel Pepys recorded his first cup. In 1681 the East India Company gave orders to their agents in China for a regular supply for the London market, the price being about 12s, to 13s. per pound.
By the period of the Napoleonic wars the price of tea in London was about 5s. per pound. This high cost induced a great amount of smuggling. In 1833, the monopoly over tea enjoyed by the East India Company was ended by Act of Parliament and this led to a large proportion of the trade from China passing into the hands of American ships, and the commencement of the building of the famous tea clippers. In retaliation, British firms also laid down tea clippers, the first being the Stornoway built in 1849 by Messrs. Jardine Matheson Ca., Ltd. Later, the American ships, for a variety of reasons, dropped out of the race, but the competition between the racing clippers was maintained between rival British firms and resulted in the historic races homeward from China to London with the first of the new season's tea crop.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.