Tea and European Decorative Arts
The growing popularity of tea, particularly among the upper classes, inspired a parallel growth in interest in all the accessories of tea. The eighth-century
Chinese tea master Lu Yu had written about the twenty-four pieces necessary for tea in China, but the British managed to figure out even more accoutrements to use with tea, including silver and furniture as well as porcelain and pottery.
Queen Anne, who succeeded William and Mary at the beginning of the eighteenth century, used a silver tea set— a custom that was quickly copied by aristocratic ladies throughout the country. These English ladies found out, however, that silver teacups are uncomfortable to hold when filled with hot tea…not nearly as easy to hold as Chinese porcelain. As a result, the paper-thin, beautiful Chinese porcelain cups were in great demand and were considered the only true and appropriate way to take the drink. Of course, the silver tea service, consisting of the teapot, creamer, and sugar bowl, remained a symbol of wealth and refinement.
The Chinese were quite willing to sell tea wares of pottery and porcelain as well as tea itself. At first, however, they refused to sell the best-quality wares, keeping them for their own use. Better and better porcelain pieces eventually became available to European markets, and these and other Chinese wares were brought to England. As the wares became more beautiful, the demand for them increased dramatically, until finally a mania for anything Chinese spread
throughout Europe, particularly in England, during the middle of the eighteenth century.
Chinese artists began to make tea ware specifically for sale to England. They had invented hard paste porcelain and kept the secret of kaolin (the Chinese clay essential for creating porcelain) closely guarded for centuries, with the result that for quite a long time, Asian tea ware was superior to anything made in Europe.
The first European porcelain was made in Meissen, Germany, in 1709 . For many years, British artists tried to produce their own fine ceramics, but
everything they produced cracked easily when filled with hot liquids. It wasn’t until the dawn of the nineteenth century that Josiah Spode developed the first good bone china in England. This is a hybrid porcelain, made by adding calcined bone to a hard paste.
In response to the demand for Chinese wares, British artists began to copy Chinese art, and a style called “chinoiserie” developed. Chinoiserie style was an imitation of Asian decorative arts, though it was done from a Western
perspective and made no attempt to adhere to the rules and standards of the original. By the end of the 1760 s, the mania for chinoiserie had finally begun to ebb, giving way to gothic revival and neoclassic styles.
Teapots and Other Tea Ware
As noted earlier, the first vessels for brewing tea sent to Europe were probably the Chinese wine ewers. The first real teapots, however, were the prized Yixing pots from China, which were of unquestionable beauty and quality. Inevitably others of varying quality followed.
The first teacups in England were imported about the same time as tea. These looked more like bowls than teacups as we know them; they were small and had
no handles, as the Chinese did not use handles on their cups. The diminutive size of the cups indicated that tea both in England and in China was still precious and considered a luxury item. The small size also suggested that the same tea leaves were used over and over again, to get as many cups of tea out of the leaves as possible. The concentrated space allowed one to gather the leaves together to reuse them.
The tea saucer was always shipped with the cups or bowls. The saucer was said to have been invented in seventh-century China. The discovery is attributed to the daughter of a military official, who used a small plate to cool tea before she offered it to her father. In many parts of the world, the saucer is still used this way, instead of functioning to catch any tea spilled from the cup, as we use it.
Almost everything that had to do with tea was shipped in from Asia,
including teapots, milk pots, tea canisters, sugar dishes, cups, and saucers. The amount of porcelain brought from China to England during the seventeenth and eighteenth century was staggering. In 1980, a ship that had sunk in 1643 in the South China Sea was found to contain massive amounts of porcelain, including over eight thousand cups of various types, including stem and conical shapes.
Excavations of the Geldermalsen, a ship that was wrecked in 1752, yielded forty thousand cups and fifty thousand saucers.
By the 1770 s, matching tea sets could be ordered from China through the East India Company merchants. These were called breakfast sets and were composed of a teapot, a sugar box (including a lid), a small stand for the teapot, a milk pot (like a cream pitcher), and a dozen cups (still without handles). In 1775, the East India Company ordered eighty tea sets, along with twelve hundred teapots, two thousand covered sugar bowls, four thousand milk jugs, and forty-eight thousand cups and saucers.
Even with such enormous amounts of porcelain being imported, the British pottery industry began its own manufacturing of tea ware toward the end of the eighteenthcentury, and it was at this time that the European custom of placing a handle on a teacup became common. While cups for tea had single handles, cups used for hot chocolate—or by those who were weak or in firm—had two
handles, one on each side. Larger teacups were used at breakfast, while smaller ones were used for afternoon tea. No matter what size the cup was, though, the saucer stayed the same size.
CHAPTER 8
The British in India, China, and Ceylon
“I don’t care about immortality, just the taste of tea.”
—Lu Tung, eighth-century Chinese poet
THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY established the first British factory (trading post) on the coast of western India in 1619 . At first, traders believed that they could exchange British broadcloth for Indian goods, but they quickly found out that Indian textiles were of such high quality, there was little interest in buying European cloth. Undaunted, the company discovered that they could purchase Indian-made items cheaply and sell them in Great Britain for a profit— but reselling textiles did not bring nearly the profits that tea did. It had become obvious to the East India Company that if they were to maintain the tremendous profits to which they had become accustomed, the tea trade had to continue, and, if at all possible, grow. With the continuing frustrations of dealing with the Chinese, the British began looking for alternative methods of obtaining tea. The logical choice was India.