For the past twenty years or so, the story of Britain’s high streets has all been about coffee, coffee, coffee. And rightly so: sales of coffee have long since overtaken tea. When people want to get together for a catch-up, these days they’re likely to say, “Let’s meet for coffee.” Coffee chains such as Starbucks, Costa and Caffè Nero, as well as thousands of independent coffee shops, are now a feature of our national life.
Tea drinking making a comeback
Yet tea is showings signs of making a comeback. Although most younger drinkers are not turned on by the milky, often sugary drink consumed by their parents, they are warming to the pleasures of different kinds of tea: green tea, bubble tea (a beverage originating in Taiwan that uses various flavours and tapioca balls), Japanese matcha tea, and all kinds of herbal infusions such as South American maté.
New tea bars are opening up around the UK, while coffee shops and cafés are having to update their offerings to cater for the new generation of tea drinkers.
The history of tea drinking in Britain
But how did the British come to be drinking tea in the first place? The story begins in China, where tea has been drunk for thousands of years. Evidence of tea-drinking was found in the tombs of Chinese Han Dynasty emperors from the 2nd century BC. One of the stories about the origins of tea – a rather gruesome one - says that a Buddhist devotee, or perhaps even the Buddha himself, was meditating when he fell asleep. Annoyed with himself for dozing off, he cut off his own eyelids and tossed them away, where the eyelashes grew to become the first tea bushes.
Whatever the truth, the bush from which all tea is made – camellia sinensis, to give it its full botanical name – was cultivated in China and slowly spread to Japan and the rest of the world. The Portuguese and the Dutch were among the first to import it to Europe, and tea became hugely popular. In 1662 Britain’s King Charles II married Portugal’s Princess Catherine of Braganza; she popularised tea drinking at court, and the habit spread.
Mid 19th century tea
By the mid-19th century, tea clippers such as the Cutty Sark were a feature of ocean life, and Chinese domination of the tea trade was coming under threat. British Botanist Robert Fortune travelled around China disguised as a Chinese trader on behalf of the British East India Company (all of which was highly illegal). Acting as a kind of industrial spy, he stole tea plants and observed the complicated processes involved in making tea.
(For a long time it was believed that green tea and black tea were made from different plants; it turned out, though, that they are made from the same leaves, but their treatment is very different – black tea, which is what is most widely drunk in Britain, goes through a process of heating and rolling known as “fermentation”, though in fact it’s more like curing.).
The contraband tea plants that ended up in India mostly died, but Fortune’s knowledge of the processing of tea leaves proved invaluable in establishing the Indian tea industry. And tea drinking took a huge leap forward in the early 20th century with the invention of the teabag.
Today China is still the biggest tea-growing country in the world, but tea is widely grown elsewhere – India, Sri Lanka, Kenya; there are even tea plantations in Cornwall, on the Tregothnan Estate.
Tea rooms and tea shops
From the early years of the 20th century onwards, tea rooms and tea shops were found on every high street, with the Lyons chain leading the way. Tea became not just a drink but a social event, perhaps not as laden with ceremony as the famous Japanese tea rituals, but still an important part of daily life. In the second world war, tea played a vital role in keeping morale high.
The growth of coffee shops
In recent years tea rooms have been supplanted by coffee shops and cafès, but now, in a trend that seems to have begun in America, new tea bars and tea shops are opening, offering exotic teas, matcha lattes and herbal infusions in cool surroundings. (Some retailers, by the way, peddle the myth that green tea is healthier than black tea; in fact, both contain equal levels of healthy anti-oxidants.).
Fermented tea?
Among the new tea bars is Jarr, which is mainly in the business of selling a drink called kombucha – fermented tea with various flavourings – and which has an outlet at a small “tap room” in Hackney, east London. In Newcastle, Pumphreys – a business long associated with coffee – serves speciality teas at Mrs Pumphrey’s Curious Tea Leaves Shoppe in Grainger Market. Across town, Quilliams Brothers Tea-House offers dozens of teas and is open most nights until midnight.
Tea shops in London
In Tooting, south London, The Brew is a new “tea pub” that aims to offer a wide range of teas in a pub-like environment (it serves beer and cocktails, too). Also in London, Amanzi offers exotic-sounding teas, including Ginseng Oolong and T-Rex, at its branch in Marylebone, and has ambitions to become Britain’s leading tea-bar brand. Bubbleology has around a dozen branches selling bubble tea, mostly in London but also with branches in Sheffield and Leeds.
The Urban Tea Rooms sells sandwiches and 10 varieties of loose-leaf tea at its two central London branches. It was set up to provide “a modern equivalent of the traditional tea room”. Speaking of which, the tradition of a proper English afternoon tea has survived the onslaught of the coffee shops, in the form of Bettys, which has six branches in Yorkshire; here, cake stands, fine crockery and doilies are the dominant themes.
In response to the demand for a wider range of teas, chains such as Starbucks now offer hot and cold teas with names such as “jasmine pearls tea” and “iced shaken hibiscus infusion”.
How can coffee shop and café owners respond to the new generation of tea consumers?
Well, the first thing to say is that tea now comes in many glorious colours, from pale off-white to deepest red, so if you’re following the trend and serving exotic blends and varieties, glass cups might be the way to go; these will show off the rich hues of the liquid. Second, bear in mind that the new tea drinkers are a younger crowd. They will not take kindly to fine china, doilies, cake stands and flouncy old-fashioned decor. They prefer things to be more authentic, natural, honest.
This often means unvarnished wood, bare brickwork or plain plaster, local photographs on the walls, that sort of thing. Amanzi serves tea in fancy brewers, made from transparent materials so that the process of the tea brewing and straining into the cup can be seen and relished. (Amanzi sells a range of teaware, and also has a helpful guide to brewing the different kinds of tea.)
And there are all manner of well-designed, cool-looking teapots, stands, strainers and other tea paraphernalia now available.
It seems that what was once a murky brown liquid that was often doused in milk and over-sweetened with sugar has come out into the open in all its varieties of colour and flavour. There’s life yet in the British cuppa.