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AUDIENCE COMMENTS
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TEA
caroline woodroffe tea
did the health benefits of drinking boiled water contribute to the popularity of tea? I don't believe this was mentioned.
Charles Lowe - Idea for a Programme in the series
Dear Lord Bragg, In your excellent series, do you think there might be a place for a programme about ‘Alternative Science’, or the history of the Philosophy of Science, or simply 'The Myth of Science'. I fear the world is much too complacent about what science is, and what they assume it can achieve, in its current incarnation. Even more worryingly than this, there is both an unquestioning faith that scientific method is unique in being able to uncover the truth, and a false acceptance that science is objective and unbiased. The history of scientific philosophy, from Aristotle, to Descartes, to Popper, to Kuhn, and now to Mary Midgley and notions of ‘holistic science’, shows us, surely, that such quaint notions are untenable, however attractive such ‘certainty’ is! And as physicists come to see that the universe is in some way both ‘self-organising’ and full of unmeasurable phenomena (such as dark matter and dark energy), the ‘microscope and mechanism’ metaphors on which Enlightenment Science is based, looks increasingly obsolete. Atomism and reductionism are giving way to interfunctionalism, which in turn should one-day give way to holism. What do you think? Is there mileage in this idea for a programme? I hope so.
Ann Barton, tea trade
Enlightening,when some enjoy luxuries others are being exploited. What, in the end paid for our tea = a) african slaves exported to the sugar plantations, b) silver mined in S America, c) cotton goods manufactured in Liverpool by the exploited and displaced peasantry after the enclosures of common land and the growth of the industrial cities. What pays for luxuries now is mainly inequitable terms of trade, international debt servicing, (cheap loans were offered to irresponsible governments, which were displaced, but interest rates soared (Reaganomics) and the people of eg Kenya, Tanzania, are still paying interest. Also cartels and monopolies and sweated labour by the subsidiaries of international firms. How can we expect to have endless cars etc without squeezing the tribal peoples off their land, and forcing African farmers to grow cash crops for export, while their poor farmers cannot grow maize for their own families and so they end up as unemployed labourers in the cities, while climate change creates drought.
Pat TEA
I smiled as I remembered two elderly aunts of a friend of mine, having received a wartime gift of teabags from the US, found this very strange and carefully cut them all open to empty them into the tea caddy. It somehow seemed the obvious thing to do at that time.
Roger Evans Tea
A very interesting program, but was there an important omission? I believe that until the late nineteenth century consumption of tea and coffee was about equal in the UK. Our coffee came from our former colony of Ceylon but the failure of the coffee crop in that country resulted in the ordinary working man changing to tea. In 1870 Ceylon was exporting one hundred million pounds of coffee per annum, it was the major coffee exporting country in the world. But soon the coffee rust fungus (Hemileia vastatrix ) started to devastate the crop, by 1889 production had fallen to five million pounds and by 1892 it was negligible. Coffee plants were then replaced by tea bushes, which were resistant to the disease, and so tea became cheaper and more popular in Britain than coffee.
Margaret Morgan - Tea
I believe the information below was gleaned from a series of programmes shown about 4 years ago (I think) exploring reasons for the extent of the influence of the Industrial Revolution in England. As I remember, it was stated that it was the drinking of tea which actually made it possible for towns to grow over the one million population mark. Unitl then epidemics and illness had always intervened and limited population growth. But Tea : 1) was itself mildly antiseptic 2) required the water to be boiled before use - hence killing many of the contaminating organisms. These factors led directly to the improvement of the health of the urban population, and I would suggest that this was probably the reason its use became widespread, even among the poorest inhabitants.
Shaun Frost "Further Reading"
Dear Melvin, Thank you for yet another interesting programme. What a joy "In Our Time" is. I do however have a small request to make. After each new subject I am always very keen to find out more. In pursuit of this aim I wonder if a short reading list might be provided for each theme containing books and articles dealing with the current state of debate. Perhaps your guests could be asked to suggest a few titles. These could then be published on the website or sent with the newsletter. I , and I'm sure other listeners, would find this very useful. I hope you will give this some thought. Thank you once again.
Doug - Tea
I thoroughly enjoyed the programme. There was however one point which was, for me, missing. If the Chinese had their tea so closely controlled how did tea plants get to India to start the trade there?
Chris - The Tea Trade
Another fascinating program and one that answered some of the questions left hanging after The East India Company - particularly about what did we pay for all this tea with ? (Apparently Indian taxes). I remain quite confused about wealth creation and stimulation of the economy; I suspect that if I were faced with a large amount of perishable goods coming in to the country (tea) and imperishable goods going out (silver) then I too would have shouted "stop, no more". Was it only paid for by conquest and colonisation? and how do we really pay for luxury goods now?
Zaf - Tea
The British certainly love tea, but it should be noted that, the Turks are the second biggest tea consumers in the world after China. The Ottoman empire also depended on tea to keep them going!
The Tea Trade- Della Mason
What a truly fascinating programme.. thank you Melvyn Bragg for picking up and filling in so many details about tea - such an everyday product these days, I loved hearing about how it found its way here to Britain. Brits were always great entrepreneurs and explorers: expeditions funded to find plants etc; and now we know how tea arrived. Though we are an island our sea trade from way back makes one feel that we have always behaved as though we were part of a global world. Will you be looking at the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, in 2005, please? Hope so. Nelson is one man who stepped aboard a ship - and into new worlds - with such incrediable assurity and enviable ease.
Tea - Jennifer Douglas
Why is it necessary to describe events that happened 4 hundred years ago, in the present tense? Instead of "he went", we hear "he goes", or "the emperor sees" instead of "saw". This is such an annoying aspect of current broadcasting of historical events. Everything is described as though it is the scenario for a film or TV programme. Perhaps it could be the topic for a future programme!
Jim Russell - Tea
Congratulations on yet another fascinating and hugely informative programme. Although at a rough estimate I was aware of at least 90% of the information upon which the programme was based it was only as ‘useless little nuggets of information’. I found the synthesis of these into a convincing narrative persuasive and had a couple of, if not ‘eureka' moments, ‘ah ha!' moments, and I am sure that there will be more as I mull over the subject. Keep up the good work.
Jane Shackleton - In Our Time: The Tea Trade
The Tea Trade: it sounds a rather boring title but it was a fascinating discussion, compelling listening, how 2oz tea changed British lives in so very many different ways, economically and socially, and how we became a nation of gossips and shopkeepers!
Brian Wilson - Heroism
I just heard that next weeks programme will be about heroism. Recently I was told that in The Bible there are no heros I hope this will be covered in next weeks edition of this excellent programme as I would like to know if it is true. Thanks, Brian Wilson. brian_anthony_wilson@hotmail.com
Christopher Swann - Tea
Tea is such a great subject. One thing though. The Chinese were so astonished by the "Barbarians'" (us) interest in their tea, and also so contemptuous of it, that when the trade opened up they sold us the oldest and worst leaves they had, keeping the youngest and best leaves for themselves. The first consignments of tea in the holds of the ships that brought it here were not much better than dust, and yet we still developed and appetite for it.
Elizabeth Svabova - tea
I have just turned off In Our Time. I have enjoyed exceedingly many of these programmes in the past. Mr Bragg is excellent when marshalling disparate threads of argument, and he understands brilliantly how much time to give contributors and which are the pertinent questions. Unfortunately, today the topic for the programme is the tea trade. Tea, let me point out, is not an idea. It is a popular drink, and there are no major differences of perspective to be resolved within that area. 'Melvyn Bragg explores the history of ideas' it is said - Please could you let him? Straight history programmes belong in another slot.
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