How the history of tea is featured in library collections across Europe
Tea is what keeps many of us going on cold, chilly winter days, when it’s raining, windy or snowing. Have you ever wanted to know more about this wonderful hot drink, about where it’s from, how you grow it, and how the plant is prepared?
Libraries are usually your best source of information, and Europeana can help you find out more from your own national library and other national libraries and research libraries in Europe.
Let's take a look to see what literature about the history of tea we can find from libraries on Europeana.
Learn about the science of tea
The National Library of Serbia's collection includes a technical paper from the journal Genetika. In it, you want to learn more about the science behind your cup of tea in the article 'Impacts of flushing and fermentation times on the quality of black tea' - so you can find out what separates good from bad in the world of tea.
A guide to consuming tea
The National Library of France has a booklet, which was published in 1845. It includes a guide to consuming and preparing tea, as well as hot chocolate. And it claims to give advice for preparing the perfect coffee.
A tea cyclopedia
The Bodleian Libraries, one of the foremost research libraries in Europe, offers many old books in digitized form on their website.
One of these is the Tea Cyclopædia which offers information on tea, tea science, blights and more. It dates from 1882 - it started out as a compilation of material from the Indian Tea Gazette, and was expanded to 'add to the value of this Volume'.
Sing a ballad about tea
The National Library of Scotland has an English ballad telling the story of John and his wife having an argument about tea.
We don't recommend fighting over tea! Especially don’t, as John does, kick over a table because there is a tea pot on it!
There’s something really interesting about this particular ballad though. Pay attention to the rhymes - the ballad is in English, but English as it was pronounced in the North East of England in the early 1800s. So 'tea' isn't the same as 'tee', but rhymes with 'day', while 'devil' rhymes with 'civil'.
