Even high taxation couldn't stop the growing demand for tea. At the end of the seventeenth century, the importation of tea into Britain was big business; and it was under the control of a single organisation known as the East India Company.
In 1600, Elizabeth I granted the Honourable East India Company an exclusive license to trade in the Far East - and this legal monopoly on trade became extremely lucrative for the Company.
So much so, that within ten years, the Company had its own shipyards on the lower Thames at Deptford - and was turning out the finest merchant sailing ships in the world.
History of Tea
Did you know?
Thomas Twining gained his early tea knowledge by working for an East India Company merchant. In 1706, Thomas Twining purchased Tom's Coffee House, in Devereux Court, off London's Strand. Soon, he turned his attention to selling another beverage with a great deal of potential, and the Twinings Tea empire was born.