Two Leaves in the Age of Discovery
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Kevin Godbee - Feb 13, 2012
- 9 min read
E. Roberts
In the first part of this series, A Brief History of Two Leaves: Tea & Tobacco, we took a look at the remarkable parallels in the early histories of tea and tobacco—plants springing out of the ground from falling body parts, a close association with spirits and the divine, a sense of ritual. In an age before the modern chemical pharmacopeia, they were both also considered primarily medicinal herbs before their more common recreational uses superceded that.
Appetites for the exotic, be it spices or silver, demanded faster exchange over the great distances between Europe and the Far East. Thus, it is in the Age of Discovery—that period of maritime exploration and expansion by the European powers in the 16th and 17th centuries—that tea and tobacco finally make their way around the globe. Wherever they are introduced, they are incorporated into the local cultures and quickly segue from medicines to exotic luxury goods to vital commodities. With this growing power, they often changed the face of industry. Tea had been filtering slowly westward for centuries overland via the Silk Road, spreading its roots through Russia, India, and Arabia along with the cargo of spices and the textiles for which the route was named. As it changed hands it also changed languages, and the name of the plant was transmuted from ch’a to chai to tay to tee as it moved through Persia and Araby, yet it always retained its phonic sibilance. With this peregrination it also moved slowly out of the realm of the aristocracy to the common people, particularly finding favor with monks and missionaries. It was a common beverage to be had in Mecca, for instance, as pilgrims observant of the Islamist temperance found it a pleasing and religiously acceptable stimulant.
The "Silk Road"
Over time the Middle Eastern cultures developed their own particular rituals and customary preparations associated with tea that differed from its Chinese roots. For example, in Morocco, green tea found its local gastronomical counterpart in mint, and its preparation is traditionally a masculine role. In Turkey, conversely, the tea is strong, black and sweet, and the preparations reserved for women. In nearly all cultures, though, tea became conduit for talk and trade, negotiation and contemplation—walk into any bazaar from the Khan el-Khalili in Cairo to Senado Square in Macau and you’ll likely be entreated to haggle prices over a cup of tea, as were visitors four hundred years ago. This peculiar affinity for commerce is a recurring theme in tea’s history.
As the 16th century dawned, the oceans had been transformed from a terrifying, unknown expanse (and possibly the edge of the planet) into the superhighways of the day. The European powers raced to expand their territories and meet the demand for goods from spices to saltpeter. The Americas were "discovered" in the search for a faster route to China, of course, and opened up commercial and colonization opportunities on yet another front. After the initial realization that they had in fact reached a place that was not at all China, the Spanish and Portuguese were more than happy to exploit the vast, new resources they found. Tales of cites made of gold and fountains of eternal youth were more than tantalizing, naturally. The real gold they found would arguably be the humble tobacco plant.
Tobacco benefited greatly from the common sailors’ appetites, and it was on the caravels and galleons of Portugal and Spain, England and the Netherlands that the fragrant weed traveled the globe. In the span of a century, tobacco was seeded from the Mundus Novus, the new world of the Americas, to the entirety of the globe via every port town and harbor along the sea routes. It first traveled eastward to Europe and North Africa with the Portuguese, who dominated the high seas at the time. It followed the first direct voyage from Europe to India with Vasco da Gama in 1498, then further into the Spice Islands and eventually China and Japan. It took root firmly in Spain and Portugal, and was hailed in many early texts as a cure-all medicine, administered in a variety of ways. Occasionally tobacco, like tea before it, also accompanied the travels of holy men. When the Dutch and Portuguese sailors introduced it to ports in Japan, it penetrated the interior of the country with the help of Buddhist monks. It seems they had developed an affinity for the fragrant stimulant, and as well could use the seeds as currency along their travels. The sailors’ connection to tobacco survives intact to this day, with the term "Navy Cut" still being a topic of controversy in the realm of pipe smoking. Latakia leaf is so named after the Syrian port city, and names like Escudo and Borkum Riff perpetuate the mystique of the seafarers.
It was at the Portuguese court that the French ambassador Jean Nicot de Villemain became acquainted with tobacco in the 1550s. He wrote glowingly of its medicinal properties and eagerly introduced it to his countrymen, even curing the Queen Mother’s headaches with a pinch of snuff and sharing it with the Father Superior of Malta and his monks. It is in his honor that Linnaeus christened the plant Nicotiana tabacum, securing his place in history—though perhaps not to his approval, considering the contemporary climate toward it.
By the turn of the 17th century, tobacco and tea had effectively made their way around the earth from opposite directions, meeting in Europe. It is with the creation of the East India Companies, first by the British in 1599 and then by the Dutch in 1602, that the two plants really begin to flex their muscles. The two East India Company enterprises were consortiums of traders who pooled their resources to secure a monopoly with Southeast Asian territories. What started as a logical extension of hedging the risks associated with sea journeys ballooned into the world’s first mega corporations, the likes of which had not been seen before nor since. Their economic powers soon surpassed simple marketeering to the point where they administered territory through treaty and conquest, had the power and authority to build armies and declare war, and held controlling interest in their respective home governments. The East India Companies dealt in many goods, and tea was at first little more than a curiosity that the royalty and upper class could indulge in, owing to the expense of its journey to Europe. As the ships grew bigger and more numerous continuing into the 18th century, however, the price conversely shrank to the point that commoners would eventually enjoy the beverage as well. Tea soon was served in coffeehouses throughout the Continent and the Isles, and began its shift from a medicinal drink to a more casual and contemplative one. The coffeehouses of the day were very much boys’ clubs for the merchant class, and tea was a perfect accompaniment to conversations of politics and commerce.
Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of Charles II, is actually credited with tea’s meteoric rise to fame in England in the mid-1600s. Cathy was a teetotaler, eschewing wine and spirits in her court in favor of tea (though unfortunately for this narrative, the word "teetotaling" has nothing to do with the drink). Already a popular beverage in the Portuguese court, her example paved the way for tea to be socially acceptable for women and the bourgeoisie. Though it had gained a foothold in the coffeehouses, they were a male-dominated realm; through Catherine’s example it became appropriate for women as well, and once the floodgates were opened they swung wide. Along with the use of a fork at dinner, Catherine had introduced high tea to the world. It had now become firmly ensconced in the European palate, and demand for it grew rapidly over the coming decades. Beginning as a curiosity that ship captains brought back for their personal use, it had bloomed into a commodity of absolute necessity. The East India Companies expanded their colonization in India largely with tea plantations, particularly after the Assamese variety and fermentation techniques became popularized and refined from 1644 onward. This marked a shift from green tea to oolong and black teas. As a measure of its demand, from the mid-1600s to 1700 Britain had imported nearly two hundred thousand pounds of tea; by 1720 it had eclipsed even silk as the primary Company product with over ten million pounds, and by the 1750s over forty million pounds came in legally.
Tobacco, too, had enjoyed a remarkable rise in popularity and economy during the 1600s. Though it had been transported to the corners of the earth, it was primarily a cash crop in the American colonies. Francis Bacon wrote poetry about it, and the smoke wafted across Europe. Kings James and Philip III tried to outmaneuver each other for supremacy in the European market of New World tobacco, while in the colonies a man could purchase a wife for a couple hundred pounds of the leaf. In fact, tobacco was a primary legal tender for the first 200 years of the American colonies, and lasted longer than gold as a currency standard. The concept of royal monopoly on the transport and taxation of the golden leaf were part and parcel of nation building in this Age of Discovery. Considering its rather gradual dispersal over the course of the 16th century, tobacco use increased exponentially in the 17th century. Perhaps owing to this extreme and growth, attitudes toward tobacco swung drastically both for and against it. In the space of a decade, one Pope condemned its use while another established a cartel for it; one Sultan of Turkey sentenced tobacco users to be executed as infidels, only to have his successor repeal the ban and name it (along with coffee, wine and opium) as one of the four "cushions on the sofa of pleasure". One medical treatise would declare it a panacea while another would decry it as a social poison.
Trade disputes, territorial land grabs and piracy were ripe ingredients for the numerous skirmishes and outright wars over the period from 1500 to 1750. The settlement of the Americas and Far East enterprise had so rapidly accelerated the growth of the European empires and their bourgeoisie that it may seem only natural that the world was in a near-constant state of war for over two hundred and fifty years. The advent of the East India Companies was a natural progression of this attitude of mercantile hegemony. Agricultural surplus is what built our cities and civilizations, and the desire to alter consciousness is innate to the human condition; thus, it is not surprising that these two leaves, by offering a biochemical route to shift consciousness, became the most important cash crops to Europe. To make a social commentary, perhaps it is because these two leaves were both rather acceptable and mild inebriants, and easily transportable, that they became such essential products. Expansion was expensive, and was often paid for by piracy, land-grabbing, coercion, or outright war. The East India Companies’ traffic in tea to the American colonies was crucial for the revenue necessary to finance England’s emerging dominance over her neighbors. The colonists were understandably incensed at this taxation without representation; to briefly encapsulate a complex time in history, the Townshend and Tea Acts culminated in the fabled Boston Tea Party and, ultimately, in the American Revolution. England’s tea and America’s tobacco were now at war.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonightâs show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
Thereâs a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though Iâve had it for more years than I care to recall. Itâs old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoyâs Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and itâs a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. Itâs the pipe equivalent of a vintage car thatâs been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours dâElegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowlâs surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the workâs been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once Iâd cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but itâs how I roll. If an old pipe isnât pretty to look at, itâs unlikely that Iâll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. Thatâs why I leave it for last. Sometimes, Iâll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconistâs shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco Iâd stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shopâs owner couldnât tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before heâd bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word âDISCONTINUEDâ in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I donât recall it as being âhighly aromaticâ as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought Iâd like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didnât have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything Iâd experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasnât. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply canât. I wonât. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and thatâs enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, itâs nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I donât lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. Itâs not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long itâs been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years Iâve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and thatâs […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonightâs show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonightâs show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, letâs just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. Thatâs better, isnât it? Whatâs got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big oneâChristmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. Itâs in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. Itâs aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedomâs philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, âI believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.â Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Punditâs way of summing it up. You just donât go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. âI am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,â said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ainât easy to turn on the lights in Punditâs rock pit head. Now itâs time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love itâShelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. Thatâs one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. Weâll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
I do love a cup of hot tea with a pipe, not to mention a piece of hot pecan pie!
Very interesting article on two subjects you obviously adore.
A very interesting article,one of my regular afternoon drinks with with a pipe is cup of Lapsang tea.
Well now, here’s an informative and unexpectedly erudite treatment of two of my favorite vices. Very well done! A bowl of Navy Flake and a cup of Earl Grey seem entirely in order after reading this concisely summarized and nicely composed article. A great read supported by super pix. Thanks!
This was a great article, another reminder of how tobacco changed the world. I enjoy tobacco and tea daily. Thanks for the history, one of my favorite aspects of this website.
Another fantastic article, deeply enjoyed, accompanied by a bowl and a cup. Bravo!
I drink quite a lot of tea, myself. I started with a green tea phase and then branched out into the black teas. I’ve got a couple new teas coming in the post that I’m looking forward to trying. Thanks for your articles! Both have been fascinating, and I look forward to reading more!
Great article!
Thanks!
You know, there ain’t nothing like it. Actually, over this last winter season, I’ve consumed far more tea than coffee–highly unusual for me, as I’m someone with a wee bit of blood in their coffee stream–and have made many little “flavor discoveries” of my own. Being able to slug back a couple gallons of tea over the course of a day is a lot easier on my system, and I’m sure a lot easier on the nerves of those people around me….
I just love this article! Amazing to hear the history of something I enjoy everyday and take for granted where and how it’s popularity came about. Excited to read more!
Great article!
I drank a lot of tea with my tobacco while I was studying abroad in England. Perhaps it’s time to start up again. You sure do make it sound enticing. Many thanks!
incredible article! I love the history of the world via our favorite substances… always fascinating reading. More like this please!
Well studied. After reading your article I was inspired to brew some first flush darjeeling that I had forgotten about. Thank you!
There are FOUR great things in life;
1) Smoking a pipe
2) Good quality tea.
3) 15yr old scotch whisky
4) Medium rare steak
Nice to see this group enjoys at least two of my vices…:-)
Like the meat on the fire just a tad bit longer, and I had to give up the booze, but that is a solid list Barkar
Very nice article—a tea lover here too.
@Barkar — I’d like to place an order for #3 & #4 on that list as well đ
@Pipemama–Happy Mother’s Day!
@Amy–Rishi Tea has a great FF, it’s one of the things that put them on the tea world map. Check em out!
@Matthew–Me too! I also owe a nod to Malcolm Gladwell in that regard, though he paints a much more vibrant picture with his stories.
@Sculpture–To make tea sound exciting is high praise indeed! hehe
@Lindsey & Mary–why thank you, ladies! I also write for weddings, bar-mitzvahs and wakes!