The History of Stuff, an ongoing serial

Tea.

The earliest traces of tea have been found in an ancient mineshaft in Mbekegwanaland, Nairobi, dated to 7000bc. It was here that scholars believe that the first raw tea ores were mined. These ores were the first tea consumed. It is believed that the first teas were made by dumping the ores in a river and then drinking from downstream, as the earliest known teapot has been dated only to Ancient Sumeria.
As the process of tea-drinking refined, so too did civilisation. Eventually the peoples of Babylon found that adding bauxite to the tea ore at the smelting stage resulted in an entirely different beverage that we know today as coffee.
Tea spread throughout the world, becoming an important commodity in many ancient civilisations. Rome traded tea with India to such an extent that tariffs had to be placed on kettles.
The next real step forward in the world of tea came in 1764, when Earl Grey married Sir Thomas Lipton. Their third child, Dilmah, patented the world’s first teabag. Weighing in at twenty five kilos and only available in 25-bag packets, teabags soon became the number-one cause of hernias during the Regency.
Today, tea is consumed the world over. Tea refineries can be found in many countries, but the massive stripmines of India and China still dominate the industry. The importation of Tea to the west is strictly controlled by cartels headed up by the controversial ‘tea barons’. These callous profiteers carefully control the supply of tea, always ensuring that demand is slightly greater than supply. While the UN has called for greater freedom in the distribution of tea, it is rumoured that the Tea Barons are contolling supply to shield the world from the reality of a dwindling supply. A British company, TeaCo, has recently set up the world’s first undersea tea dredging operation in the North Sea. While returns are small at present, this advance may see a return to the cheap and plentiful tea of the British Empire.