tea and sugar, which became paired in England soon after tea’s introduction—somewhat surprisingly, since tea in China was never sweetened. No one knows exactly why the practice took root, but the tea imported by Great Britain tended to be bitter and, as a hot beverage, could readily absorb large amounts of sugar. In fact, one of the principal uses of sugar in Britain was as a sweetener of tea, and the custom drove a substantial increase in sugar consumption—which in turn drove an expansion of slavery to run the sugar plantations of the Caribbean. (An estimated 70 percent of the slave trade
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