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New Discoveries
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As the popularity of tea began to grow, the East India Company began to look for a new source of tea. After many years of searching and trials, the first few chests of Indian tea were shipped back to London and auctioned off at the London Tea Auction. After many years of the buying all their tea from the Chinese, the British had managed to cultivate their own tea, known as Assam tea. Indian tea was hugely successful as it was duty free and anyone could ship it back from India, the market had opened up!

Earl Grey

Legend has it that the recipe for Earl Grey tea was given to the Earl Charles Grey by a Mandarin friend in China. The blend of tea was unique and nothing had ever been tasted like it before in Europe, leading to it's success. The absorbing taste of Earl Grey can be attributed to the extract of Bergamot Oil that is added when blending.

Tea Clippers

After the Navigation Acts were removed in 1849 any ship could import tea into the United Kingdom. The Americans saw the opportunity and moved in on the lucrative tea market. They introduced the tea clipper, named because they had a reputation for clipping the sailing time from China or India to the United Kingdom. This caused a wave of change within the tea merchant community, prompting the British to develop their own fleet of speedy tea clippers to rival that of the Americans. As a consequence of this a racing mentality arose between the British and American tea clippers to see who could get back to the London docks fastest. The sleek, majestic ships caught the imagination of an eager nation and soon many rich gents were placing sizeable bets on the winners of the races.

With the opening of the Suez Canal and the advent of faster and more powerful steam ships, clippers sadly became a thing of the past. The only remaining tea clipper still intact today is the famous Cutty Sark, now stationed in a London dry dock.

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