Sean Lemass might have permitted himself a wry smile at the demise of the London tea auctions on June 29th this year. For others, it signalled the passing of an era, an end to what was not just a commercial enterprise but a longstanding tradition, a social occasion where brokers, buyers and traders met weekly to enjoy the hustle and bustle of the market.
The first tea auctions in the world, they started in London in 1679 when the Old East India Company had the monopoly on the tea trade. Their most famous venue was Plantation House on Mincing Lane, a name as synonymous with tea as Fleet Street is with the press. This tiny lane housed the auctions in various buildings from 1834 until 1971.
Ireland's relationship with the London tea auctions was a little different from that of other countries. Until the Second World War, 95 per cent of tea imported into Ireland came from London. Peeved at Ireland's neutral status, and in an effort to get access to Irish ports for their ships during the war, the British tried to "twist the arm" of the Government. They imposed a "half ounce" measure of tea on the Irish, which, when compared to the two and a half ounces the British were allowed, was more than enough to inflame those who just had to have their "cuppa".
No more tea
After the war, Sean Lemass, then Minister for Industry and Commerce, took a hard line, insisting that no more tea was to be bought from London. This gave birth to Tea Importers Ltd, a semi-state body which imported tea from the country of origin and apportioned it to Irish distributors until 1958. From then until 1973, when Ireland joined the EU and free trade became the norm, you could buy tea where you liked but it still had to be imported through Tea Importers Ltd.
It's no surprise to those in the trade that the auctions have been diminishing for some time. Speed in getting the tea to London was always of the essence. Even in the mid-1800s, British tea clippers - elegant vessels with sharp bows especially designed for speed - braved appalling weather in racing tea to London. But with the advance of modern technology and communications, sending tea to London took too much time. The tea had to be sampled, catalogued and then sold, with a resulting lengthy wait for the producers in getting their money. Small wonder they decided to set up their own local auctions.
"England used to be the predominant tea-drinking consumer in the market", says Tony Kane of Wilson Smithett & Co. Ltd., one of the last remaining London brokers involved in the tea auctions. "With the growth of other consuming markets, it became more natural for producers to sell in the country of origin, like Calcutta and Columbo and latterly Mombasa. When the Kenya Tea Development Authority, who were great supporters of the London tea auction, pulled out last year, there was just not enough tea to support the market. Trading patterns change and as brokers we'll have to develop sales outside. We'll sell a lot by private treaty, so there'll be a change of emphasis."
Great characters
Buyers in Ireland see the ending of the London tea auctions as a commercial inevitability but are sorry to see its passing. "The closure of the UK auctions will not make much difference to us", says Chris Moloney of Lyons Tea. "Down the years London has become so small, we haven't bought much there. But it's sad to see it go. It was one of the first auction centres in the world. It had lots of great characters, people who were very big in the tea world. It's a very trusting profession and the auctions gave you a chance to meet others involved in the tea business. A small sample of tea could represent £40,000 and you pay before it comes on line, so you have to trust the people you're doing business with".
Dublin tea taster Owen Dawson remembers the London tea auctions nostagically. "I would nearly get emotional about their closure because they're such a part of my own past life. When I was apprenticed in Tetley's in London, I'd be running up and down twice a day to the auctions, getting the marked pages of the catalogues from the buyer and running back to ring the appropriate warehouses where the tea was stored, so that we could draw samples of the tea. But it's not economical to send tea to London anymore. You're talking about time. Most of the tea estates were once Britishowned. Now local people run the tea estates and sell in their own auctions so the producers have their money that much quicker".
Pots and cups
Owen demonstrated the process of tea tasting to the Diary, setting out his pots and china cups in an age-old ritual that, like wine tasting, hasn't changed much over the years, a well-trained palate and a good spit being the most important requisites. The passing of the tea auctions was marked by a charity auction, a nostalgic affair attended by over 200 people involved in the tea trade, along with other interested onlookers. "More of a wake than a celebration", says Tony Kane sadly. "We'll miss the personal contact. It was always a good occasion to meet, a way of having a chat and catching up on who was doing what to whom, so it will be a social change as well". The final charity lot - a chest of fine Ceylon Hellbodde tea from Sri Lanka - was knocked down to Taylors of Harrogate for a cool £24,420 sterling.
Cutty Sark: clipper ship served the English-Chinese tea trade in the 1870s.