Lovers of the old and conservative customs of the table were not anxious to try the novelty. Others shied at it; some flirted with it, in tiny teaspoonfuls; others openly defied and attacked it. Among the latter were a number of robust versifiers and physicians.
"'Twas better for each British virgin,
When on roast beef, strong beer and sturgeon,
Joyous to breakfast they sat round,
Nor were ashamed to eat a pound."
The fleshly school of doctors were only too happy to disagree with their brethren respecting the merits and demerits of the new-fangled drink; and it is hard to say which were most bitter, the friends or the foes of tea.
Maria Theresa's physician, Count Belchigen, attributed the discovery of a number of new diseases to the debility born of daily tea-drinking. Dr. Paulli denied that it had either taste or fragrance, owing its reputation entirely to the peculiar vessels and water used by the Chinese, so that it was folly to partake of it, unless tea-drinkers could supply themselves with pure water from the Vassie and the fragrant tea-pots of Gnihing. This sagacious sophist and dogmatizer also discovered that, among other evils, tea-drinking deprived its devotees of the power of expectoration, and entailed sterility; wherefore he hoped Europeans would thereafter keep to their natural beverages--wine and ale--and reject coffee, chocolate, and tea, which were all equally bad for them.
In spite of the array of old-fashioned doctors, wits, and lovers of the pipe and bottle, who opposed evil effects, sneered at the finely bred men of England being turned into women, and grumbled at the stingy custom of calling for dish-water after dinner, the custom of tea-drinking continued to grow. By 1689 the sale of the leaf had increased sufficiently to make it politic to reduce the duty on it from eight pence on the decoction to five shillings a pound on the leaf. The value of tea at this time may be estimated from a customhouse report of the sale of a quantity of divers sorts and qualities, the worst being equal to that "used in coffee-houses for making single tea," which, being disposed of by "inch of candle," fetched an average of twelve shillings a pound.
During the next three years the consumption of tea was greatly increased; but very little seems to have been known about it by those who drank it--if we may judge from the enlightenment received from a pamphlet, given gratis, "up one flight of stairs, at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, without Temple Bar." All it tells us about tea is that it is the leaf of a little shoot growing plentifully in the East Indies; that Bohea--called by the French "Bean Tea"--is best of a morning with bread and butter, being of a more nourishing nature than the green which may be used when a meal is not wanted. Three or four cups at a sitting are enough; and a little milk or cream renders the beverage smoother and more powerful in blunting the acid humors of the stomach.
The satirists believed that tea had a contrary effect upon the acid humors of the mind, making the tea-table the arena for the display of the feminine capacity for backbiting and scandal. Listen to Swift describe a lady enjoying her evening cups of tea:
"Surrounded with the noisy clans
Of prudes, coquettes and harridans.
Now voices over voices rise,
While each to be the loudest vies;
They contradict, affirm, dispute,
No single tongue one moment mute;
All mad to speak, and none to hearken,
They set the very lapdog barking;
Their chattering makes a louder din
Than fish-wives o'er a cup of gin;
Far less the rabble roar and rail
When drunk with sour election ale."
Even gentle Gay associated soft tea with the temper of women when he pictures Doris and Melanthe abusing all their bosom friends, while--
"Through all the room
From flowery tea exhales a fragrant fume."