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DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
there. Krick is a man that sends over much shipping. The Duke of Monmouth had eighteen with him, and all came into the church. I bought six pounds of tea, which cost thirteen guilders a pound.[1]
- ↑ It was in this year, 1678, that the East India Company began the importation of tea as a branch of trade: the quantity received at that time amounted to four thousand seven hundred and thirteen pounds. It had been introduced into England in Cromwell's time, as is proved by an advertisement preserved in the British Museum, from which the following is an extract. "And to the end that all persons of eminency and quality, gentlemen and others, who have occasion for tea in leaf, may be supplied, these are to give notice that the said Thomas Garraway (in Exchange Alley, near the Royal Exchange, Tobacconist, and Seller and Retailer of Tea and Coffee), hath tea to sell from sixteen to fifty shillings the pound."
To follow a little further the history of tea, it appears that in 1726 it maintained nearly the same prices as those above mentioned. Dr. Sherard, writing to Dr. Richardson, says, that 12s. per lb. was paid for 3lbs. of Bohea Tea in London, which is cheaper by 3s. than it can be bought in the shops. Nicholls's Lit. Illust., i. 400.
Those who feel any interest in tracing the growth of one of the most common of our customs may refer to Dr. Johnson's Review of Jonas Hanway's "Journal of eight days' Journey," and D'Israeli's Paper on the introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate.—Cur. Lit., v. 204.
"Coffee Drink" was made and sold in London in 1652, but we find in Anthony Wood's Diary that a coffee-house was opened in Oxford two years before, in 1650, by Jacob, a Jew. Though Lord Bacon considered that coffee "comforted the
