The British Empire: A source for good or evil? January 2014 | Page 6

New tasty experiences from the British Colonies What comes to your mind when you think about tea? The British of course! But like you know, tea doesn't come from the Great Britain. But what have made the Great Britain to be the country of the tea time? What else do you think that the British Empire brought from their colonies? India, the Jewel of the British Empire During the seventeenth century, the British Empire took control of the food production in India as it created a commercial company called the East India Company. India was one of the most important British colonies when it comes to importing food. The British Empire brought spices, tea, coffee and rice from India. The colony had a huge impact to the British cuisine; they have adopted the curry-style spicing from India and without it we wouldn't even have ketchup. Nowadays curry is almost a national dish of Great Britain, thanks to the colonisation. India was called « the Jewel of the British Empire » because of the several important ingredients which were exported to Great Britain. Did you know ? Without the colonisation we wouldn't have ketchup: the British adopted a style of spicing from India and that's how they developed a line of spicy sauces, including ketchup. How tea became the national drink of the Great Britain? Originally tea comes from China but the British exported it to India. They wanted to have an own tea producer. During the 17th century it became popular in Great Britain. In 1840 the tea production in the subcontinent started to by controlled be the British interests. At the beginning of the importation to Europe it was an upper-class drink but later it became the drink of all the classes as it became cheaper. Did you know ? The Europeans discovered tea the very first time in the coffee shops in London in 1660's. Jean-Etienne Liotard (Swiss artist, 1702-1789) Still Life Tea Set, 1781-83 The American and African discoveries The British Empire had colonies in America until 1783. They brought cheese from Canada, sugar and rum from Caribbean islands and bananas from Jamaica. The African colonies were established later, during the XIXth century. There the British discovered fruits, like oranges and apples.