"THE CUPS THAT CHEER"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22468, 11 July 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

"THE CUPS THAT CHEER"

In Praise of Tea

By KOTARE

NEW ZEALAND ranks as on© of the great tea-drinking countries of the .world. I do not know how Russia stands to-day, but a few years ago New Zealand and Russia, like Abou Ben Adhem, led all the rest. It is impossible to read far in a Russian story without coming across a samovar, and it would be very difficult to imagine a social life in New Zealand that does not include tea. Tea still holds its own in spite of more heady rivals. So completely has it become identified with family and social life that it comes as a shock to realise that it was well on in the seventeenth century before England knew anything about it. The Dutch seem to have brought it from the East to Europe. It was in the last years of Oliver Cromwell that the first teashop was opened in London. At first it seems to have been regarded chiefly as a medicine.. On the 25th of September, 1660, Samuel Pepys, greatly daring, had his first experience of it. He makes no comment; simply records " I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink), of which I never had drank before, and went away." He had strong opinions on most things, but here he is silent. Only once again doe* he mention tea, some seven years later. " Home, and there find my wife making of tea; a drink which Mr. Pelling the Potticary tells her is good for her cold." Once the taste was acquired there would bo no need to emphasise the fact that it was taken purely for medicinal reasons. Making its Way It was only a few years later that Waller declared that " tea keeps that palace of the soul serene." Waller also gave the magnificent picture of old age: The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks which time has made. And tea, he thinks, gave that serenity in the centre of things which more than compensated for the havoc the years had wrought on the physical frame. Tea had not taken long to win its \vay, for Waller was a much older man than Pepys, and was already in his sixties when Pepys was making his first experiments with the new drink. Pope mentions in " The Rape of the Lock " that Queen Anne had acquired the tea habit and that tea-drinking was part of the ritual of the royal day. He is describing Hampton Court. Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea. Apart from its interest as a tion of the- progress of tea-drinking in the royal household, that couplet shows that " tea " was at that time pronounced " tay," a form still retained across St. George's Channel. That was, of course, the common eighteenth century usage. Dr. Watts rhymes "way" and "sea," and Cowper, " survey " and " sea." It was Cowper, in " The Task," who gave to tea its most conspicuous place in our literature. He is describing the winter evening. Outside, the postman, " herald of a noisy world, with spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks," but inside, warmth, and comfort, and- toa. Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast. Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steamy column and the cups That cheer but not inebriate wait on each. So let us welcome peaceful evening in. In New Zealand Even Chesterton, the boisterous champion of wine and beer, has a good word to say for tea. He declares that tea is at least a gentleman. Tea is like the East he grows in. A great yellow Mandarin With? urbanity of manner And unconsciousness of sin; All the women like a harem At his pigtail troop along; And like all the East ho grows in He is poison when he's strong.

Just about the time that Cowper, in his snug refuge from the tribulations of a hard world, was writing in praise of tea by the fireside, at this end of the world the men on Cook's ships were trying to compel some of New Zealand's flora to act as a substitute for the magic camellia of China. Bayly, who was astronomer on the Adventure on Cook's second voyage, reports under April 12, 1778, that " there is here great quantities of a shrub which is called the tea-tree from our peoples using it instead of tea, and tho it is not so good as common tea from the .Last, it made very good holesome drink for breckfast." Later the tea-tree became often the ti-tree, from a mistaken idea that this was the Maori name for it.

There are later references to the use of manuka for tea. In the early Otago settlement, after the collapse of tho New Zealand Company, there was no regular communication with" the Old World, and often tea and flour and tobacco were in very short supply. Manuka was frequently the only possible substitute for tea in those lean days. Its bark also was used instead of tobacco. Tea-leaves that refused to yield the smallest further trace of colour after many infusions were also a tobacco substitute. The piri-piri, the " biddybid " of current usage, was gathered and dried, and in times of dire necessity used instead of tea. In Japan Japan, and not ?>ew Zealand or Russia, has paid the greatest honour to tea. It is officially recognised that tea has ten supreme virtues. To how many of them would we southern teaworshippers subscribe? 1. Tea has the blessing of all the deities. 2. Tea promotes filial piety. 3. Tea drives away the devil. 4. Tea banishes drowsiness. 5. Tea keeps the five viscera in harmony. 6. Tea wards off disease. 7. Tea strengthens friendship. 8. Tea disciplines body and mind. 9. Tea destroys the passions. 10. Tea gives a peaceful death. Our love for this delectable beverage would perhaps not carry us quite to these lengths. Professor Sadler, of Sydney, sees in the formal Japanese ritual of tea-drink-ing the essence of the Japanese way of life. The preparation and the serving and the drinking of tea are all governed by an ancient ritual. Every step has been determined by the masters, and the Japanese girl has as one of the first of her duties the exact acquirement of its smallest details. It is complicated, but there must be no deviation from the fixed order and form. Sadler sees in its dignity and precision and orderliness an epitome of Japanese civilisation. Out of it, and its place in the centre of homelife, he sees developing the Japanese view of life and the Japanese standards of taste.