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Reading Practice
The history of tea
The story of tea begins in China.
According to legend, in 2737 BC, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting
beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water, when some leaves from
the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try
the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia
sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea. It is impossible to
know whether there is any truth in this story. But tea drinking certainly
became established in China many centuries before it had even been heard of in
the West. Containers for tea have been found in tombs dating from the Han
Dynasty (206 BC—220 AD) but it was under the Tang
Dynasty (618—906 AD), that tea became firmly established as
the national drink of China.
It became such a favourite that during the late eighth
century a writer called Lu Yu wrote the first book entirely about tea, the Ch’a
Ching, or Tea Classic. It was shortly after this that tea was first introduced
to Japan, by Japanese Buddhist monks who had travelled to China to study. Tea
received almost instant imperial sponsorship and spread rapidly from the royal
court and monasteries to the other sections of Japanese society.
So at this stage in the history of tea, Europe was rather
lagging behind. In the latter half of the sixteenth century there are the first
brief mentions of tea as a drink among Europeans. These are mostly from
Portuguese who were living in the East as traders and missionaries. But
although some of these individuals may have brought back samples of tea to
their native country, it was not the Portuguese who were the first to ship back
tea as a commercial import. This was done by the Dutch, who in the last years
of the sixteenth century began to encroach on Portuguese trading routes in the
East. By the turn of the century they had established a trading post on the
island of Java, and it was via Java that in 1606 the first consignment of tea
was shipped from China to Holland. Tea soon became a fashionable drink among
the Dutch, and from there spread to other countries in continental western
Europe, but because of its high price it remained a drink for the wealthy.
Britain, always a little suspicious of continental trends,
had yet to become the nation of tea drinkers that it is today. Starting in
1600, the British East India Company had a monopoly on importing goods from
outside Europe, and it is likely that sailors on these ships brought tea home
as gifts. The first coffee house had been established in London in 1652, and
tea was still somewhat unfamiliar to most readers, so it is fair to assume that
the drink was still something of a curiosity. Gradually, it became a popular
drink in coffee houses, which were as many locations for the transaction of
business as they were for relaxation or pleasure. They were though the preserve
of middle- and upper-class men; women drank tea in their own homes, and as yet
tea was still too expensive to be widespread among the working classes. In
part, its high price was due to a punitive system of taxation.
One unforeseen consequence of the taxation of tea was the
growth of methods to avoid taxation—smuggling and adulteration. By the
eighteenth century many Britons wanted to drink tea but could not afford the
high prices, and their enthusiasm for the drink was matched by the enthusiasm
of criminal gangs to smuggle it in. What began as a small time illegal trade,
selling a few pounds of tea to personal contacts, developed by die late
eighteenth century into an astonishing organised crime network, perhaps
importing as much as 7 million lbs annually, compared to a legal import of 5
million lbs! Worse for die drinkers was that taxation also encouraged the adulteration
of tea, particularly of smuggled tea which was not quality controlled through
customs and excise. Leaves from other plants, or leaves which had already been
brewed and then dried, were added to tea leaves. By 1784, the government
realised that enough was enough, and that heavy taxation was creating more
problems than it was words. The new Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger,
slashed the tax from 119 per cent to 12.5 per cent. Suddenly legal tea was
affordable, and smuggling stopped virtually overnight.
Another great impetus to tea drinking resulted from the end
of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade with China, in 1834. Before that
date, China was the country of origin of the vast majority of the tea imported
to Britain, but the end of its monopoly stimulated the East India Company to
consider growing tea outside China. India had always been the centre of the
Company’s operations, which led to the increased cultivation of tea in India,
beginning in Assam. There were a few false starts, including the destruction by
cattle of one of the earliest tea nurseries, but by 1888 British tea imports
from India were for the first time greater than those from China.
The end of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade with
China also had another result, which was more dramatic though less important in
the long term: it ushered in the era of the tea clippers. While the Company had
had the monopoly on trade, there was no rush to bring the tea from China to
Britain, but after 1834 the tea trade became a virtual free for all. Individual
merchants and sea captains with their own ships raced to bring home the tea and
make the most money, using fast new clippers which had sleek lines, tall masts
and huge sails. In particular there was a competition between British and
American merchants, leading to the famous clipper races of the 1860s. But these
races soon came to an end with the opening of the Suez Canal, which made the
trade routes to China viable for steamships for the first time.
Questions 1-7
Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading
Passage 1
Use ONE WORD for
each answer.
Write
your answers in boxes 1-7 on your
answer sheet.
1 Researchers
believed the tea containers detected in 1.....................
from the Han Dynasty was the first evidence of the use of tea.
2 Lu
Yu wrote a 2.....................
about tea before anyone else in the eighth century.
3 It
was 3..................... from
Japan who brought tea to their native country from China.
4 Tea
was carried from China to Europe actually by the 4.....................
5 The
British government had to cut down the taxation on tea due to the serious crime
of
5.....................
6 Tea
was planted in 6.....................
besides China in the 19th century.
7 In
order to compete in shipping speed, traders used 7..................... for the race.
Questions 8-13
Do the following statements agree with the information
given in Reading Passage 1?
In
boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet,
write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the
information FALSE if the statement contradicts the
information
NOT GIVEN
if there is no information on this
8
Tea was popular in Britain in the 16th
century.8.....................
9
Tea was more fashionable than coffee in
Europe in the late 16th century.9.....................
10 Tea
was enjoyed by all classes in Britain in the seventeenth century.10.....................
11 The
adulteration of tea also prompted William Pitt the Younger to reduce thetax.11.....................
12 Initial
problems occurred when tea was planted outside China by the East IndiaCompany.12.....................
13 The
fastest vessels were owned by America during the 19th century clipperraces.13.....................
Solution:
|
1. tombs |
8. FALSE |
|
2. book |
9. NOT GIVEN |
|
3. monks |
10. FALSE |
|
4. Dutch |
11. TRUE |
|
5. smuggling |
12. TRUE |
|
6. India |
13. NOT GIVEN |
7.
clippers
PASSWORD: IELTSREADING
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