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Hello after air and water tea is the most widely consumed substance on the planet and the British national drink

In this country to help define class and gender it funded wars and propped up the economy of the empire

The trade started in the 1660s with an official import of just two ounces by 180 on

24 million pounds of the stuff was coming in every year and people of all classes were drinking an average two cups a day

It was the first mass commodity and the merchant philanthropist Jonas Hanway

Decried its hold on the nation your servants servants down to the very beggars will not be satisfied unless they consume the produce of the remote

Country of China in which it had been drunk and cultivated for thousands of years

What drove the extraordinary take up of tea in this country?

What role did it play in a global economy of the empire and at what point did it stop becoming an exotic foreign luxury and

Start to define the essence of Englishness with me to discuss the history of T. Issue Bowen

Senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Lester

James Warvin professor of history at the University of York and

Amanda Vickery read in history at Royal Holloway University of London you burn

Long long before the British acquired the Taisfti it was widespread in China. Can you tell us briefly

When it's supposed to have started then how it was drunk and what significance it had

Well tea had been drunk in China for thousands of years

It's significance was in the first instance medicinal and it gathered a reputation

As an energizing beverage and it's really

Contact with that form of the

commodity that first to alerts the British and indeed Europeans to its qualities

...