[Sca-cooks] History of Tea

[Avraham haRofeh]

>  Which Raises the queston......When did Western Europeans
>   first use Tea, Hot or otherwise as a Beverage ?

In 1516 the Portuguese landed in China, having discovered the sea route to
the East. In 1557 they were allowed to establish a trading station at Macao
in return for ridding the region of pirates, but the British and other
nations had to wait until 1685 for permission to trade with China. So began
the direct discovery of Chinese tea in the west, although the name had
already been introduced through contact with the Turks, who enjoyed drinking
brick tea brought along the Silk Road.
The first European to personally encounter tea and write about it was the
Portuguese Jesuit Father Jasper de Cruz in 1560. He was the first of some
Catholic priests, arrived at the Cambodian king's court in 1555. de Cruz
mentions tea in a letter home to Portugal from China, where he went after
being an year in Cambodia. Portugal, with her technologically advanced navy,
had been successful in gaining the first right of trade with China.

The first known reference to tea by an Englishman dates from 1615, when a
certain Richard Wickham wrote to Macao asking for 'a pot of the best sort of
chaw' The oldest name for tea recorded in China seems to have been Kia and
the prounciation Ch'a is only found after 725 A.D.. In certain regions a 't'
took the place of the initial 'ch' and we find the variant pronunciations ta
or tai. In Korea today we find both pronunciations, Ch'a and Ta, just as in
England from the beginning people spoke of both cha and tay.

The first recorded Coffee House in England was in Oxford, open by 1650. The
first known in London, at the Sign of Pasqua Rosee in St Michael's Alley off
Cornhill, was open by 1652. But after the Restoration in 1660 London began
to fill with coffee shops, where tea was also served, and by 1683 there were
reported to be over 2000 such shops in London.