Camellias make wonderful garden plants – and a delicious cuppa too. Flo Whitaker unpacks the curious tale of tea
Tea is an ancient drink that has been consumed for thousandsof years. It is produced by harvesting the young shoots of Camellia sinensis; a shrubby evergreen plant indigenous to Asia. Variants of sinensis have since been introduced across the world – there are tea-growers in Cornwall and Scotland! When unpruned, C. sinensis produces dainty white flowers. There are approximately 200 other wild types that mostly produce brighter, larger blooms – these are the ancestors of our garden camellias.
European medieval maps included vague references to ‘The Orient’; a place so remote and unknown that it was often described in mythic-type language. There is evidence for early, (circa 13th century) commerce between east Africa and China, but it was the Portuguese, renowned for their sailing and mapping skills, who first dominated Oriental trade. However, in 1583, Jan Huygen van Linschoten, a Dutch merchant, cartographer his maps and travel notes, which ended the Portuguese monopoly.
Around 1610, the Dutch brought the first tea to Europe. In 1657, Garraway’s, a London coffee house, began serving tea. Samuel Pepys first tasted ‘tee’ in 1660, but it wasn’t until the marriage of Charles II to Catherine of Braganza in 1662 that tea-drinking really took off. Charles’s Portuguese queen was well-accustomed to the brew and tea became a fashionable beverage in court circles.
Government jumped onto the tea bandwagon; applying punitive taxesto this new import, which kept tea-drinking primarily in the domain of the privileged classes. At its height, taxation reached 119%, fuelling lucrative smuggling opportunities. With their proximity to the continent, Kent and Sussex became smuggling strongholds; offering landing places in secluded inlets and marshlands, while still being conveniently close to London.
The scale of tea-smuggling cannot be overstated. At his trial in 1729, Gabriel Tompkins from Mayfield admitted to smuggling 11 tons of tea and coffee in a year – and it was reckoned that 75% of tea retailed in London was contraband. However, in 1794, after persistent parliamentary lobbying by the British East India Company, the tax was slashed to 12.5% and tea smuggling quickly declined.
With falling prices, tea became a staple across societal boundaries.When fortified with milk and sugar, it was considered a foodstuff and it was reasoned that even the poorest could afford stale bread to dip into a nourishing brew, (the origin of ‘dunking’, perhaps?)
The custom of ‘afternoon tea’ started in the 1830s. Plain bread and butter was soon augmented with cakes and savouries. The thumping soundtrack of the industrial revolution was accompanied by millions of hissing samovars and whistling kettles. Temperance groups promoted tea drinking as, ‘The cup that cheers – but does not inebriate’. Victorian municipal parks and museums, designed to encourage wholesome exercise and educational pursuits, included radical features such as public lavatories and refreshment areas – as did the new-age department stores.
This gave women greater social freedoms; enabling them to meet friends, unchaperoned, in ‘respectable’ places. Seaside piers and other leisure destinations all required tea shops and railway companies provided refreshment rooms for thirsty travellers. Whether consumed in a royal residence or a slum tenement, tea-drinking was now part of the nation’s culture.
The opening of eastern trade routes saw a stampede for silk, cotton, spices, tea, coffee, sugar – and slaves. Tea created staggering wealth for some, but unfathomable suffering for millions, who lived and died in slavery, indentured labour and grinding poverty. We cannot change the past, but we should not be blind to modern-day slavery. We can help by exercising consumer power. In the UK, we drink one-hundred- million cups of tea every day. By resolving to pay a little more for accredited fairtrade products, we can affect substantive change.
When ornamental camellias first arrived in the UK, (early 1700s) they were thought to be tender exotics and were grown in conservatory environments, but they proved to be very hardy.
The horticultural world went camellia-crazy. Gardeners propagated hundreds of new varieties and exhibited them at horticultural shows. Florists used these exciting new blooms for corsages and buttonholes, while domestic interiors featured camellia motifs on wallpaper, carpets, fabrics and ceramics.
Camellias are easy-going, long-lived plants that thrive in moist, humus-rich soil. Although at their showiest in spring, they work hardest in summer; a time when our attention is focussed elsewhere and we can easily forget their needs. After flowering, they start making new growth, including flower buds that will remain dormant until the following year, so applying a slow- release feed now, along with a moisture-retaining mulch of compost or leaf mould will boost them through the summer months.
Camellias are ‘evergreens’; a slightly confusing term suggesting permanence, but plants are not static and all evergreens renew their leaves from time to time. You may notice shrubs such as camellias and rhododendrons shedding leaves in spring; sometimes with a second ‘drop’ in autumn. Don’t panic – this is perfectly natural behaviour.
There are a few late autumn/winter-flowering camellias. Known as ‘Sasanquas’ types; they offer glamorous blooms at the dullest times of year, but are less hardy and need a sheltered position – against a house wall, perhaps? Camellias do well in pots, providing they are well hydrated. Consider removing the pot base, then placing the pot directly onto the soil. This will allow the plant to root down into open ground, but still give the visual appearance of a potted specimen.
The Sussex Weald is noted for its woodland gardens, many featuring vast, magnificent camellias planted in Victorian times; so why not treat yourself to a garden visit, followed by refreshments in a teashop. Remember, that welcome cuppa is a direct link to thousands of years of horticultural endeavour. You’re holding history in your hands.
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