I have been changing up my teacups lately, using different ones instead of the same cup day after day. I have a dozen or more pretty ones that rarely see the light of day, which is silly. So I decided to start using them. Here is today's cup, a soft pattern of ferns in pink, pale brown and greens. The rim is pink, which fades to white inside the cup, and there is a pretty ring of green around where the cup rests on the saucer. This one is by Norcrest, and made in England.
My former favorite cup was by MacBeth Evans in their petalware line,
but last week the cup cracked in three pieces when I poured in the hot tea. The same thing happened a couple years ago with a Hazel Atlas cup. I guess this is one of the down sides of using vintage dishes.
So thinking of teacups and tea made me wonder if there were any superstitions connected to tea. We've all heard of people who "read" tea leaves to foretell the future, but what else did people think about this cozy brew? Quite a lot, it seems!
First though, who first thought about taking dry leaves and pouring hot water over them to make a tasty drink, According to a Chinese legend, "tea was first discovered by the legendary Chinese emperor and herbalist, Shennong, in 2737 BCE.[3] It is said that the emperor liked his drinking water boiled before he drank it so it would be clean, so that is what his servants did. One day, on a trip to a distant region, he and his army stopped to rest. A servant began boiling water for him to drink, and a dead leaf from the wild tea bush fell into the water. It turned a brownish color, but it was unnoticed and presented to the emperor anyway. The emperor drank it and found it very refreshing, and cha (tea) came into being." --from wikipedia. It is a fact that tea was discovered in the tomb of the Emperor Jing of Han in 2016, which dates the use of tea to at least the second century BC.
The tea we drink today, however owes much to the British. First brought to England by the East India Trading Company, tea became popular on the island in the 17th century. From Wikipedia: "Thomas Garway (or Garraway), a tobacconist and coffee house owner, was the first person in England to sell tea as a leaf and beverage at his London coffeehouse in Exchange Alley in 1657."
So when the British took control of India, the cultivation of tea in that country began in earnest. The British discovered that good, thick leaves grew in the Assam region, and began developing tea plantations to supply the Empire's craving.
If you really want to know more, there are some good books on the topic. One good one is Tea: The Drink that Changed the World by noted folklorist Laura C. Martin.
Now to those superstitions:
- Dropping a few leaves of loose-leaf tea in your house will bring good luck.
- Brewing strong tea means you will gain a friend. Weak tea? You guessed it, you will lose a friend.
- Throwing your used tea leaves onto the fire is good luck, and keeps poverty away.
- If two women pour from the same pot, one of them will have a baby within a year. If a man and a woman pour from the same pot, they will have a baby together (my parents (13 children) must have done this one quite often!)
- Spilling tea leaves while making your tea is good luck (but spilling the leaves on purpose doesn’t work, must be an accident).
- Bubbles near the edge of your cup indicate how many kisses are coming your way, but bubbles are in the center of your cup indicate money. The more bubbles, the more kisses or money.
- Don't stir tea while it is brewing in the pot or you will argue with a friend.
- On the east coast of England, fishermen never empty the pot after they've started fishing. To do so means they are tossing out all the fish they may catch and will go home with empty nets.
- Stirring someone else’s tea means you are stirring up trouble for them.
- If you drop a teaspoon on the floor, it means a child is coming to visit.
- Accidentally leaving the lid off the teapot means a stranger will visit you with bad news.
- It is bad luck to pour boiling water into an empty teapot, forgetting to put in the tea.
- I like this one: the more tea leaves that end up in your cup, the fuller your life will be.
Herbal Blessing
Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
My Mom had fine china cups, and would put a teaspoon into the cup before pouring, aim the hot tea at the bowl of the spoon, to avoid cracking. I think it dispersed the heat, so the boiling tea didn't all hit one small spot on the cup.
ReplyDeleteI should be super lucky as I always seem to make a mess getting the loose tea into the tea ball.
ReplyDeleteNo corrections, Sue, but your Aunt Flo would often refer to tea as "a cup of cha", or else she'd call it "a cup of Rosie", from Rosie Lee, the Cockney rhyming slang for tea. That may be from the burlesque artiste, Gypsy Rose Lee, though then you have to wonder where she got her name from, because it wasn't Lee and she certainly wasn't a Gypsy. Lee is a common Gypsy surname and Rose is a very typical girl's name among those people. When we were young the bubbles in the centre of the cup were always referred to as "money". It was very bad form to stir someone else's tea before giving it to them as this was said to be "stirring up trouble". Cold tea, without milk but with plenty of sugar, was the drink of choice of farmworkers working in the fields. I once read that china cups of the sort that were available when tea was first drunk in England would always crack if hot tea was poured into them, so everyone was in the habit of putting milk in the cup first. However when bone china became available it was found to be much less susceptible to breaking in his way. Those who could afford such items demonstrated their wealth by pouring in the hot tea and adding the milk afterwards. So it's more a matter of snobbery than taste that dictates how tea should be made.
ReplyDeleteWhat a coincidence - yesterday I was looking at teacups on eBay (that's not what I was looking FOR, but you know how it goes) and I thought I really should use my pretty teacups. So today I opened my little china cabinet and...I think I may have given them all away! I had to laugh! But I'll probably find one tucked away somewhere, and when I do, I shall give it a wash and then sit down and have a nice cup of tea :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for the tip on how to add the reply function, Quinn!
DeleteYou are more than welcome! It's not often I can provide "tech" info ;)
DeleteThat's too funny, Quinn! I downsized my collection by half last year. I mean, who needs 30-40 teacups? I kept 12 of the pretty ones, and 12 that go with my good china, though, so still enough for a good-sized crowd.
ReplyDeleteThank you for all those interesting tidbits, John! And how cool to know the superstitions about the bubbles were known in your family. I have vague memories of Mom saying something about them and of course the tea leaves in the cup, but cannot remember what it was she told us. And your mother calling tea "cha"--fascinating. She was harking back to an older time for sure.
ReplyDelete