Teas, Tonics and Tisanes

Tea drinking is a ritual of personal and cultural significance, loved and practiced throughout the world. Drinking customs have developed globally to reflect differences in food, climate, religion and social practices. Underlying tea’s persona as a refreshing, relaxing and healthy drink is, a story of British colonial power and expansion, mass production and mass consumption.

Camellia sinensis

The simple action of pouring hot water over the aromatic leaves of the Camellia sinensis, a native evergreen shrub common to East Asia, is the most widely practiced form of tea making. While exact origin is infused with myth, tea can broadly be traced to the area of north-west China, Tibet, and northern India where trade and consumption is believed to have been established for thousands of years. According to Chinese legend, tea was accidently discovered by Emperor Shen Nong in his garden when leaves fell into his boiling water, while Indian history attributes tea’s discovery to the founder of the Zen school of Buddhism, Prince Bodhi-Dharma.

Styles of Tea

Once processed, the leaves of the Camellia sinensis produce a wide variety of styles of teas, including white, green, oolong, black or Pu'erh, with much of the differences in flavor and colour, coming about from the variations in processing that alters the leaves shape and chemistry. Chinese monks and nuns were the first to cultivate and promote the benefits of tea, including its ability to enliven the mind and aid digestion. Modern day custom of welcoming guests by offering tea is directly inherited from long-established Buddhist traditions.

The sweet tea of this country

Australia’s First People have a long history of using plants high in antioxidants to assist with health and well-being. Their practices and preparations influenced non-Indigenous people to seek plants for remedial use and as tea substitutes. Plants such as the Tee Tree Gulbarnis (Melaleuca citrolens) were used to improve a baby’s immune system, the native creeper Sweet Sarsaparilla (Smilax glyciphylla) was used as a cure-all in the earliest days of the colony, and the Correa Alba (Cape Barren Tea), was well known as a substitute for ‘English’ tea.

In 1788, Irish-born surgeon Dennis Considen wrote about the Smilax glyciphylla: "I have sent you some of the sweet tea of this country which I recommended and is generally used by the marines and convicts as such it is a fair antiscorbutic as well as a substitute for tea which is more costly."

[i] Copy of letter received by Dr Anthony Hamiltion, from Dennis Considen, 18 November 1788, and sent on to Joseph Banks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilax_glyciphylla, accessed 24/08/2019

Tea, War and Imperial Expansion

Tea was first imported into Europe during the 17 century via Portuguese traders and made accessible and affordable for the British via the East India Company. This transformed it from an exotic, eastern, luxury good to an essential British household item.

As tea’s popularity steadily grew throughout the 18 century, so too did England’s ruthless global ambitions and thirst to control its production. The resulting Opium Wars, fought between 1839 and 1842, were directly due to China enforcing payment for its tea in silver only, a trading practice which threatened to empty the Empire’s coffers. Britain responded by illegally introducing Indian opium into China, creating a powerful demand for which the British required payment in silver. China’s attempt to fight back resulted in war, the ceding of Hong Kong Island, and an increase in the number of ports for Britain’s trading.[i]

[i] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars

Shifting Supply

Britain’s further attempts to shift the reliable supply of tea from China and authenticate tea’s colonial connections was advanced in 1824 with the discovery of tea in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Being able to harvest and trade from British controlled plantations enabled Britain to consolidate its source of income and independence, even though their tea was considered dramatically inferior in taste to Chinese teas.[i] While colonies such as Australia were initially resistant to the reputed lower quality taste of Indian teas, over time it followed the British patterns of consumption and adopted them almost exclusively.

[i] Fromer, Deeply Indebted to the Tea-Plant, p. 539

Commodity in a Cup and the Rise of Consumer Society

During the 19th century tea drinking took off in a colossal way with worldwide consumption growing to an estimated 80 million cups in 1898. As one of the world’s key bulk consumable products, tea has been at the forefront of consumer culture. Having arrived in Australia firmly entrenched in the diet of convicts and colonists, the very act of preparing and drinking tea provided immediate comfort and emotional connection to Empire, ensuring a strong demand. The reputed health benefits promoted in tea’s early years, remained firmly attached to its reputation, as did its association as a drink suitable for women, who enthusiastically adopted tea drinking as a domestic ritual.

Robur

In Australia, new trends in marketing saw the creation of innovative campaigns designed to not only sell more tea, but specialised tea products. Operating out of an iconic red brick building in South Melbourne, Robur Tea Co. grew into one of Australia’s largest suppliers of packet tea. Robur’s promotional activities involved the commissioning of striking artwork and photographs created by Australian artists.

Advertising campaigns were clearly successful. Australian medical practitioner and health reformer Dr Philip Muskett wrote that “the consumption of tea is enormously in excess of any common sense requirements, and is paralleled nowhere else in the world.” and that women exceeded “all bounds of moderation in this respect” growing “pale and bloodless with muscles that turned soft and flabby and had a shattered nervous system because of the extravagant presence of tea in their diets.” [i]

[i] Dr Philip Muskett, The Art of Living in Australia (London, 1893)

The Idle Habit of Drinking Afternoon Tea

The convergence of tea drinking, socialising, and material goods saw the development of afternoon tea, a British precedence associated with elegance and glamour made popular during the Victorian era. Largely perceived as a women’s activity, afternoon tea provided a comfortable space for middle and upper class women to share experiences enrich friendships. It was an activity which also upheld inherited class structures, excluding working class women because of the money and time required to participate. Tea sets were the primary apparatus used in the taking of afternoon tea, a marker of wealth, and a desirable artefact for middle class possession.

Picnics

In Australia, afternoon tea adopted a personality of its own and became a popular form of recreation, serving a variety of functions such as strengthening familiar ties. The commonly held belief that it was not socially acceptable for men to take afternoon tea, is at odds with what was practiced. Photographs from this period show men in relaxed settings such as the parlour or the garden, holding a tea cup and saucer, spending time with their family. These occasions also provided an opportunity for children to join in family recreation instead of being separated from the adults.

By the mid 1880s picnics had become deeply engrained in Australian culture with Australia’s climate facilitating the popularity of these outdoor excursions. A sense of adventure and excitement was associated with picnics, and they allowed men and women of different classes to gather at the beach, or in the countryside in a relaxed environment.

Tearooms and Women’s Independence

Tearooms were first developed in Glasgow in the 1870s to coincide with the emergence of temperance eateries and coffee houses. In Australia, tearooms played an important role in women’s growing independence, providing an alternative to the male occupied urban spaces and popular public houses that facilitated a masculine drinking culture.

Tea’s association with domesticity and femininity meant that the tearoom became a respectable and therefore appropriate setting for women to work, giving them the opportunity to enter the gendered world of business and an alternative to domestic service. Tearooms welcomed and encouraged female self-determination, and normalised social needs, while providing enjoyable experiences. In Victoria, tearooms could be found in both urban and regional settings and visiting one was a popular form of leisure activity. The Hopetoun Tearooms in the Block Arcade in Melbourne was set up in 1891 for the Victorian Ladies Work Association and is one of oldest remaining tearooms in the state.

Billy Tea as an Expression of Masculinity

The practice of tea drinking in regional and outback Australia took tea beyond the domain of the domestic setting, resulting in a cultural practice which connected tea and masculinity. Symbolised by the Billy, the link between tea making, male independence and the hard-working ethos of the bush created a unique practice not found anywhere else in the British Colonies.

To make Billy tea, water is boiled on a campfire in a light weight Billy tin (or can) and tea and eucalyptus leaves added. The Billy is swung around several times to infuse the water and tea is then poured into metal cups, with milk and sugar added if available. This ritual was commonplace throughout the outback and can still be seen practiced today, particularly as a demonstration for tourists.

Tea in the Trenches

Tea making in the trenches was a time for bonding and raising morale, keeping the men energised and connected to the familiar rituals of home. Boiling water for tea drinking also served to mask the flavour of the water that had been transported to the front in old oil cans. While soldiers had limited access to leaf tea, small compressed tablets of tea called ‘tea tabloids’ were carried in a soldier's pack. Sending a Christmas Billy was a way of connecting and providing comfort to soldiers. Billies would be filled with gifts from home and distributed amongst the soldiers, supplementing their meagre rations with items such as tea, hand knitted socks and home-made biscuits that were greatly prized.

Tea’s Changing Popularity

Access to tea became restricted in Australia between 1942 and 1950 following the introduction of a coupon rationing system that directly affected the amount of tea consumed. With rations of 100g per week per adult, Australians were prevented from drinking strong brews and traditional practices such as adding an extra teaspoon of tea to the teapot were no longer observed. The Australian Tea Bureau concluded in 1951 that Australians had now developed a taste for a “weak wishy-washy brew” and tea’s old fashioned image could not compete with the modern and sophisticated perception of coffee that had arrived with European migrants.

While tea might never be consumed to the same manic degree as in previous centuries, tea drinking remains a firmly entrenched and valued ritual. Tea lovers today can enjoy shopping for and consuming, a wide variety of specialised tea products both imported and locally grown, proving that there will always be a demand for this versatile brew.