British tea 1

I wasn't sure how to approach British tea. They are the country responsible for bringing tea to India, East Africa, and ultimately the world. They are also responsible for the rise in popularity of coffee in this country after they started a little spat with the colonists over the taxation of tea. My first musings about British tea started with the GastroPod podcast talking all about tea in Britain and India. In it, they talk about why the Brits only drink black tea. The story goes that the Chinese believed that the British wanted their green tea to be bright green, so they were adding green dye. When an explorer (or spy, I'm not sure since tea making was a secret, and the Brits were working on stealing tea to grow elsewhere) discovered this, he alerted people not to drink green tea. Black tea became the default because it was considered safe. Why would green dye in tea be so controversial? I'll let Caitlin tell you.