Tea And The Presidency

Washington and Lafayette at Mt. Vernon, painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Since tomorrow is inauguration day I decided to take a look back at past US Presidents and their tea drinking habits. I'm going to try as hard as possible to keep my own political views out of the post. Let's just get into history and tea!

Awhile back I was perusing used books and found Tea With Presidential Families and couldn't resist it. I had no idea past Presidents drank enough tea to have a whole book dedicated to it. The book has loads of photos of presidential teaware and facts about the presidents and first ladies that enjoyed tea while in office. The book starts with George Washington and goes through Bill Clinton (it was published in 1999).

The book has many interesting facts but first, let's start with President Obama. Did you know he drinks tea instead of coffee? If you ever noticed photos of him holding a mug or hot cup, it was most likely tea he was sipping on. His preference for tea was mentioned in this article from the Boston Globe from 2014 which states,

"Scour through a series of photos of him — in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, inside the Situation Room — and he almost always has a cream-colored, gold-trimmed porcelain cup in front of him. We don’t know exactly what’s in those cups, but aides suggest they’re filled with tea."

The same article shows him in various coffee shops, drinking tea (in a couple shots you can see a teapot). He is also documented as drinking quite a lot of bottled iced tea. Our 44th president certainly has good taste in beverages.

Let's take a look back at US Presidents throughout history. I've mentioned colonial tea drinking in a previous article (tea water pumps!), and during the research I came across the above picture of George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette meeting at Mt. Vernon and having tea (you can see Martha Washington pouring tea in the background).  Young Lafayette, eager to fight the British met General George Washington when he was recruited to the continental army in 1777. The two bonded and the rest can be read in history books (Washington was sworn in as President in 1789). Washington was known for his love for tea. He drank tea every morning and records show that he frequently ordered teas such as bohea and hyson.

A modern example of bohea tea

Despite the aversion to taxed tea from England, tea was a part of how colonial Americans socialized, so it makes sense that early presidents frequently sipped it. John Adams drank tea before and during his presidency. He and Abigail were the first in the White House, and records show they brought teaware from China with them and hosted many tea parties. There is a recipe for Abigail's 'rose petal tea' that she'd serve to guests in the 1960s White House Cookbook which contains recipes from various first ladies.

Thomas Jefferson is documented to have enjoyed tea, so much so that he built a tea room at his home at  Monticello. It's reported that he drafted the Declaration of Independence in his tea room in 1776. When he became president, there were many recorded orders for tea. From Tea With Presidential Families, "Although his first recorded order was for Bohea, Jefferson's taste later changed to Hyson,  which became his favorite from 1809-1816".

I decided to pull a few more interesting tidbits throughout history from from Tea With Presidential Families:

--The Van Burens were of Dutch descent and as Dutch New Yorkers they added herbs and saffron to their tea. I found this very interesting and it may warrant further research and a blog post!

--President Andrew Johnson brewed tea every day in a teapot shaped like a steam train. Supposedly it was given to him because of his interest in the railroad. I think my son would be more interested in tea if we had a teapot shaped like a train!

--President Rutherford B. Hayes had a hand in developing US tea growing! When he was sworn in as president, he appointed William LeDuc as Commissioner of Agriculture. LeDuc was impressed by tea plants distributed by the patent office growing in the south, and ended up leasing two hundred acres in Charleston for his experimental US tea farm.

-- President Garfield was a tea lover, and had two favorite tea recipes. Spice tea that had mint, orange juice, lemon, allspice and black tea, and his own herbal tea blend that included catnip and pennyroyal.

--President Lyndon Johnson " Drank only tea and Fresca. Lady Bird Johnson remarked in her diary, and we agree, 'How many things are launched under the name of a tea!'"

--President George Bush (Sr.) was known to frequently drink green tea.

Photo from Tea With Presidential Families

--During the Clinton administration, " On a visit to Belfast, Ireland, Mrs. Clinton encouraged politicians to sort out their problems by getting together over many cups of tea".

Many first ladies were known to host social teas, which the book well documents. It became customary for the first lady to invite the incoming first lady to tea. I'm sure many of you read about the tea Michelle Obama hosted for Melania Trump.

This post may have contained more presidential tea info than you bargained for, but there you have it. I felt compelled to share since I was surprised at just how much tea was consumed by US presidents and first ladies. The phrase 'make tea not war' comes to mind. This is a phrase I will keep in mind in the months ahead.

Who Had The First Sip?

I always assumed tea was first consumed in Britain before ending up in the American colonies. It's honestly not something I wondered much about until I was doing a bit of research for last week's post, and came across a few lines stating the American colonies actually had tea before the British did. I was surprised to read this could be a possibility since it's not like tea drinking is an American pastime. But it turns out there are good reasons for this, which I'll get to in a bit.

It appears we may have had the first sip, and it all comes down to the Dutch. America sipped its first cups of tea through cargo from the Dutch East India company. From the very informative book A Social History of Tea:

It arrived at the settlement of New Amsterdam. Although there is no specific record of the first instance of tea consumption in America, it was being consumed in the settlement by the time Dutch East India Company Director, Peter Stuyvesant, arrived as governor in 1647. Early records show the custom of taking tea by the upper class of New Amsterdam proved equal to that of their native Holland. The tea tray, tea table, teapots, sugar bowl, silver spoons and strainer were the pride of the Dutch household in the New World.

The cost of tea was high and it was fashionable for the rich families of the time to take tea in the afternoon with a small meal. In 1664 the British took control of all the Dutch settlements in the New World, and tea continued to grow in popularity.

The East India company (not to be confused with he Dutch East India Company) brought tea to England, and tea was first documented in England in 1660, by Samuel Pepys who mentions his first cup of tea in his diary:

And afterwards I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before, and went away.

His entire diary entry for the day can be viewed here, if you're interested in reading it. So it seems to me from looking at the recorded history that Americans started drinking tea before the British. One of the teas consumed during colonial times is Bohea, which is a blend of black teas from from Wuyi mountains in Fujian. (the area was referred to as Bohea, which could be due to pronunciation).  Most resources seem to think bohea tea would have contained some smoky lapsang souchong. It was a blend of cheaper grade teas and the most popular type to drink. It was so popular that bohea also became a way to refer to tea in general. If you're curious about this tea, a few tea vendors sell their own bohea blends today. A quick google search will come up with a few options. I think I may have to try some. There were also green teas at this time such as hyson, singlo, and gunpowder. It would take a few blog posts to discuss the teas the American colonists consumed, but you can read all about them here.  I am curious to learn more about singlo in particular, since it's not a tea I've ever heard of before. But I'll save that for a future post, especially if I end up reading this book by Robert Fortune to learn more about this subject.

While researching my last post about tea gardens (and water pumps!), I learned that early tea drinking in America was equally as popular as it was in England. In the mid 18th Century Americans developed a love for tea and tea ware. From the ever useful A Social History of Tea:

As tea became an established custom in colonial American society, it was drunk in the morning, at home and socially in the afternoon or early evening. According to Benjamin Franklin, "at leas a Million of Americans drink Tea twice a Day." Another contemporary estimated that one third of the population drank tea twice a day.

Photo from britannica.com

All this tea love was brought to a screeching halt for a few related reasons. The taxes placed on tea and the monopoly the East India company held on importing tea created gangs of tea smugglers who sold cheaper tea to the colonists. With the Stamp Act taxing goods including tea, colonists began to boycott British goods and tea sales declined. Americans started steeping 'Liberty Teas' which were essentially herbal replacements (I think a blog post on Liberty Teas is necessary!). The decline culminated in 1773 with of course, the Boston Tea Party.

"You say the price of my love's not a price that you're willing to pay. You cry in your tea which you hurl in the sea when you see me go by..." (When else can Hamilton The Musical get used in a tea post?)

There's much more to say on the matter, but to keep this post from getting too dense, I'll just say tea wasn't exactly fashionable after all of the political events of the time. If it weren't for good 'ol King George III, and the East India company, we may be drinking just as much tea as our friends across the pond. Thankfully today we have significantly fresher teas (can you imagine drinking teas that were transported and stored for months and months before making it to your cup?) and a huge variety available!