Those who know me that one of my other passions in life is the Society for Creative Anachronism, a non-profit educational group dedicated to re-creating medieval and Renaissance Europe. So, when I decided to blog about tea, one of the issues I set out to research whether tea was known and consumed in Europe prior to 1600.
Thus far, the answer appears to be yes.
The Jesuits working as missionaries in China appear to be the first Europeans to write about tea. Gaspar da Cruz, a Portuguese Jesuit returning from mission work in China, wrote in 1560 about a drink he describes as "somewhat bitter, red and medicinall [sic]."[1]
Jan Hugo van Linschoten, a Dutch trader who often sailed with the Portuguese, wrote a memoir called "Linschoten's Travels," which was published in Dutch in 1595 and in English in 1598. In that memoir, he wrote of a drink called "chaa" which is recognizable as tea.[1] By 1615, English records refer to tea as "chaw."[2]
From these initial sparks, tea begins to finder wider exposure in Europe in the early 17th century. In his book "Relatione della Grande Monarchia della China," published in 1643, the Jesuit Alvaro Semedo wrote about the Chinese custom of offering tea to guests.[1] The first tea imports arrived in the port of The Hague around 1610, and tea-drinking became highly fashionable in that area by the 1640s. [3] It is said that Cardinal Mazarin drank tea to relieve his gout.[4]
This research is a work in progress. I am working on finding reliably readable copies of the primary sources quoted by the secondary sources I've found so far.
[1] The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most
Popular Drug by Bennett Alan Weinberg, Bonnie K. Bealer (Psychology
Press, Jan 1, 2001), at 63.
[2] Id., at 67.
[3] Id., at 66; The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide by Mary Lou Heiss & Robert J. Heiss (Random House LLC, 2011) at 19, 335.
[4] World of Caffeine, at 66.
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