The
first tea reached Europe around 1610 on Dutch ships from Java, where
they picked up tea transported from China by Chinese vessels. The
Dutch had come to Java in 1596 and established a transshipment depot
for products from the Orient. There they could have met Chinese
traders from Fujian and learned the Fukienese name te. In
1602 the Dutch East India Company was formed to regulate trade among
competing ships, and in that same year the first Dutch vessel sailed
into Japan. It seems quite likely that some Chinese and Japanese
tea, at least as a curiosity, was taken back to Europe. The value of
tea as a commodity must have been recognized by 1610, for Dutch
ships carried some from Macao to Java.
By
1637 the company's directors were writing their governor-general in
Java: " As tea begins to come into use by some of the people, we
expect some jars of Chinese as well as Japanese tea with each ship."
This was green tea. Black tea did not replace it till the
mid-eighteenth century.
Within a few years, tea had become very popular in Dutch high
society. It was extremely expensive and sold in medicine shops. By
1675 it was available in food stores and was in general use
throughout Holland. Well-off people built special tea rooms in their
houses, and others, particularly women, had their tea clubs,
sometimes using beer halls as their meeting place. "The craze for
tea parties finally resulted in the ruin of many homes," one tea
authority noted. Women neglected their housewifely duties and the
angry men sought solace in the tavern. The custom came in for its
share of satire, including the play, The Tea-Smitten Ladies,
Produced in 1701.
After an initial splash, tea never made much headway in France over
the traditional beverage, wine, or in Germany over beer. But it
became popular in Russian after its arrival by the overland route,
making Russia, with Britain, Europe's other greatest tea drinking
nation.
