Linda Bassett

Centuries before our ancestors decided to toss a few tea bags into Boston Harbor, ale was Britain's national drink. From breakfast through bedtime, the bubbly brew was safer than foul drinking water. When their king married a Spanish princess, she brought her country's access to the Asian tea-growing world. Fortunes were made. The tea-drinking princess also started a custom that continues to this day. Royals, and anyone who wanted to be part of the "in" crowd, began drinking tea. (Brewing the leaves worked just as…