On Tue, 01 Nov 2005 02:14:47 +0000, Dog Ma 1 wrote:

> "A cuppa, grown in England
> First commercial tea crop sprouts in a tea-mad land"
>
> http://www.boston.com/news/world/art...ngland?mode=PF
>
> Might only be available free for another day or so.
>
> -DM

In this article it says that tea consumption in America got a hit after
the Boston Tea Party, which was a protest against English taxes imposed on
the colonies. I think this statement has to be taken with a pinch of salt:
Two tea smugglers, one of them a Boston lawyer called Samual Adams the
other was John Hancock, saw their profits hit by cheap (tax-exempt)
British tea imports which undercut their smuggled tea from Holland. They
thus hired a bunch of ruffians who dressed up as Indians and they dumped
the tea from the British ships into the harbour. Insurgency was then the
outcome and a war was started (plus ca change) under the wrong
premises.

JB