Tay, alias Tee."

Like all good things of the world, the propaganda of Tea met with
opposition. Heretics like Henry Saville (1678) denounced drinking it as
a filthy custom. Jonas Hanway (Essay on Tea, 1756) said that men seemed
to lose their stature and comeliness, women their beauty through the
use of tea. Its cost at the start (about fifteen or sixteen shillings
a pound) forbade popular consumption, and made it "regalia for high
treatments and entertainments, presents being made thereof to princes
and grandees." Yet in spite of such drawbacks tea-drinking spread with
marvelous rapidity. The coffee-houses of London in the early half of the
eighteenth century became, in fact, tea-houses, the resort of wits like
Addison and Steele, who beguiled themselves over their "dish of tea."
The beverage soon became a necessity of life--a taxable matter. We are
reminded in this connection what an important part it plays in modern
history. Colonial America resigned herself to oppression until human
endurance gave way before the heavy duties laid on Tea. American
independence dates from the throwing of tea-chests into Boston harbour.

There is a subtle charm in the taste of tea which makes it irresistible
and capable of idealisation. Western humourists were not slow to mingle
the fragrance of their thought with its aroma. It has not the arrogance
of wine, the self-consciousness of coffee, nor the simpering innocence
of cocoa. Already in 1711, says the Spectator: "I would therefore in a
particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated
families that set apart an hour every morning for tea, bread and butter;
and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to
be punctually served up and to be looked upon as a part of the
tea-equipage." Samuel Johnson draws his own portrait as "a hardened and
shameless tea drinker, who for twenty years diluted his meals with only
the infusion of the fascinating plant; who with tea amused the evening,
with tea solaced the midnight, and with tea welcomed the morning."

Charles Lamb, a professed devotee, sounded the true note of Teaism when
he wrote that the greatest pleasure he knew was to do a good action by
stealth, and to have it found out by accident. For Teaism is the art of
concealing beauty that you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare
not reveal. It is the noble secret of laughing at yourself, calmly yet
thoroughly, and is thus humour itself,--the s