The historical figures associated with tea are mostly refined, respectable, peaceful and admirable: Jane Austen, Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy among writers, for instance. How about their opposites: violent, vain, greedy, egomaniac, power hungry and disruptive?
The most colorful of such tea enthusiasts was Napoleon Bonaparte. He loved tea and all its accoutrements as much as he loved Josephine. Their marriage is best summarized as turbulent. It ended with a diplomatically forced divorce. (He needed the son she was not able to provide.) One of the most frequently quoted lines about tea comes from one of his many letters to her: “I cannot have a cup of tea without cursing the glory and the ambition which keep me away from the love of my life.” That love and his military glory are recorded on many teas sets throughout the 19th century.
Napoleon was a complexity of contradictions: one of the greatest military leaders in history; a tyrant, but the most far-reaching liberal reformer since Charlemagne the Great; a presence dominating the public stage in momentous meetings with Tsar Nicholas and his self-crowning as Emperor, and an insecure, immature twerp. As for his family of hangers-on, incompetents, nymphomaniacs, greedy graspers, and buffoons… You’ll find them on tea sets he commissioned (this one is from 1812):
One of Napoleon’s enduring legacies is tea sets. He ordered many customized designs, at outrageous expense, drawing on famed artists, and the superb porcelain of Sevres and Limoges. Here’s a post-divorce gift to Josephine:
His personal tea equipment that he traveled with was just as elegant; this samovar in his tent was captured when he lost the Battle of Waterloo.
The Duke of Wellington, who defeated him, also traveled with his silver pots and teaware. He noted that in planning for the Battle of Salamanca “Tea cleared my head and left me with no misapprehensions.”
Lessons from this history? Well, maybe these:
- You don’t have to be a nice guy to love tea.
- Tea – its legacy is not just English.
- Porcelain is a marvelous medium for design, decoration, gold ornamentation, and conspicuous consumption.
- If music is, in Shakespeare’s words, the food of love, tea is its drink.
Featured illustration by Tasneem Amiruddin
