Tea In America: The Boston Tea Party
At the beginning of the 18th century, tea arrived in Northern America, quickly becoming a desirable drink there as well. In New York and Boston, London-style teahouses started developing, where the drink was sold to the general public. At around that time, the British Empire decided to place taxes on the tea supply to the colonies of North America who were under their power. This decision greatly angered the American settlers who decided to boycott the taxed products in protest. Whenever the British ships arrived at the harbors laden with tea, the settlers would start demonstrations which forced the ships to leave without unloading their wares. The most famous occurrence in this regard was named the "Boston Tea Party", during which a group of settlers boarded one of the ships anchored in the Boston harbor and started throwing hundreds of crates of tea from its deck into the sea. England retaliated to this by sending military forces to the harbor and shutting it down. This event marked the begini ng of the American War of Independence.