英语翻译Tea drinking was common in China for nearly one thousand

英语翻译
Tea drinking was common in China for nearly one thousand years before anyone in Europe had ever heard about tea.People in Britain were much slower in finding out what tea was like,mainly because tea was very expensive.It could not be bought in shops and even those people who could afford to have it sent from Holland did so only because it was a fashionable curiosity.Some of them were not sure how to use it.They thought it was a vegetable and tried cooking the leaves.Then they served them mixed with butter and salt.They soon discovered their mistake but many people used to spread the used tea leaves on bread and give them to their children as sandwiches.Tea remained scarce and very expensive in England until the ships of the East India Company began to bring it direct from China early in the seventeenth century.During the next few years so much tea came into the country that the price fell and many people could afford to buy it.At the same time people on the Continent were becoming more and more fond of tea.Until then tea had been drunk without milk in it,but one day a famous French lady named Madame de Sevigne decided to see what tea tasted like when milk was added.She found it so pleasant that she would never again drink it without milk.Because she was such a great lady her friends thought they must copy everything she did,so they also drank their tea with milk in it.Slowly this habit spread until it reached England and today only very few Britons drink tea without milk.At first,tea was usually drunk after dinner in the evening No one ever thought of drinking tea in the afternoon until a duchess (公爵夫人) found that a cup of tea and a piece of cake at three or four o’clock stopped her getting “a sinking feeling” as she called it.She invited her friends to have this new meal with her and so,tea-time was born.

一千年以前,喝茶在中国已经很普遍了,而欧洲还没有听说过茶.英国的人们更晚发现茶是怎样的,主要是因为茶很贵.在商店里买不到,甚至只有那些能负担的起的人才能从荷兰发送得到,因为这是流行的爱好.他们中的一些不知道怎样使用茶,他们认为这是一种蔬菜,试图烹煮.然后混着奶油和食盐端上桌,他们很快就发现了自己的错误但一些人继续把煮过的叶子铺在面包上,给孩子当三明治吃.茶叶一直是稀有和昂贵的,直到17世纪早期亚洲东部的群体开始直接从中国运茶.在接下来的几年内,源源不断的茶被运进城市,于是价格下跌,一些人能买得起茶了.同时大陆上的人越来越喜欢茶,以前茶在喝的时候不会加牛奶,但一天一个有名的法国女士Madame de Sevigne决定看看茶里加牛奶会是什么味道.她发现味道好极了,于是她再不喝不加牛奶的茶了.因为她是如此有名,她的朋友认为要效仿她做的所有事,所以他们也喝了加牛奶的茶.慢慢的这个习惯被传播开,传到英国,现在只有少数英国人喝茶不加牛奶.最先,通常在吃过晚饭后才喝茶.没人想到在下午时喝茶,直到一位公爵夫人发现在三或四点钟喝一杯茶,吃块蛋糕可以停止她称做的虚脱感.她邀请她的朋友们和她一起分享,于是,下午茶诞生了