300-year-old green tea from China.British researchers have found what they believe to be the oldest tea in Britain, and to the surprise of contemporary British tea drinkers, the tea is green!The unassuming box of Chinese tea was acquired around 1700 by a ship’s surgeon James Cuninghame. Cunninghame subsequently gave it as a gift to the…
The First Written Mention of Tea by an Englishman
Dutch East Indiaman (Dutch East India Cargo Vessel)The earliest mention of tea—as “chaw”—by an Englishman is the famous Wickham letter of 1615.The letter was found in a set of old records entitled Japan Miscellanies, consisting of copies of letters from Richard Wickham, the East India Company’s factor at Hirado (Japan’s only port of trade to…