How much tea does one Englishman consume each year?

Today the British drink more tea than any other nation--an average of 4 kilos a person each year, or 1,650 cups annually. They drink it in bed in the morning, round the fire on winter afternoons and .out in the garden on sunny summer days. In times of trouble, the kettle was quickly put on, the tea is made and comforting cups of the warm brown liquid are passed round.
      Tea has even played its part in wars. When George III of England tried to make the Americans disguised as Red. Indians dump 342 boxes of tea into the sea in Boston Harbour. The Boston Tea Party led to the War of Independence.
      In another war the Duke of Wellington sensibly had a cup of tea saying to clear his head before starting the Battle of Waterloo. The Victorian Prime Minister once said, "If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are heated, it will, cool you; if you are depressed, it will cheer you; if you are excited, it will calm you. "What exactly is tea? Basically it is a drink made from the dried leaves of a plant that only grows in hot areas. The British first heard of tea in 1598 and first tasted it in about 1650. For nearly two centuries all tea was imported from China. Until, in 1823, a tea plant was found growing naturally in India. Sixteen years later the first eight chests of Indian tea were sold in London, and today, London’s tea markets deal in tea from India, Sri Lanka, and Africa more than from China.
     In Britain tea is the drink that cheers, and that is cheap. But there is darker side to the "nice cup of tea", Life is far from cheerful for many of those who produce tea in other parts of the world, Many workers on tea farms suffer from poverty and poor food, and there is a high infant death-rate. A male labourer’s wages for a day--mere 36 pence--is equal to the cost of a pound of tea to an Englishman, and that should make about two hundred cups of tea! In 1784 tea cost one shilling and six pence a pound in England (20 pounds in today’s money). Before long, Britain’s national drink may be nearly expensive again,