English Breakfast - black tea

STORY:  Today the habit of tea drinking is inexorably linked to England despite the fact that the British were fairly late on the tea scene, in historical terms. Ironically the first mention of tea in English literature is a translation of a Dutchman's travels to the East. Tea was first brought to England via Holland on Dutch ships. As tea grew to become an 'in' beverage, the British government became quite incensed

that a nation as tiny as the Netherlands could control the shipment of tea to the UK. In 1651 the British government passed the Navigation Acts, which forbade the importation of any products on non-British ships. Traders and Dutchmen, being resourceful, continued the trade in the usual manner but for one little wrinkle - the tea was transshipped in Holland onto British ships!