The first cups of tea in England
Our taste for tea is not by any means new. By the time it first arrived in England in the 1650s, tea had been drunk in China for five thousand years. It was from China that both black and green tea was first imported by the Dutch East India Company in the early seventeenth century, followed by the Portuguese, and then the British. Tea would become a significant commodity in expanding economic reach across the globe.
The thing with tea is that it was expensive. It was imported from China, and sometimes Japan, and required many different objects in the house to prepare it properly. It was marketed as exotic, as exclusive, as good for your health, and as such it became the drink of the wealthy initially. Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese queen of Charles II, is widely credited with popularising tea at court, and by the end of the 1660s, tea was being imported by the English East India Company.
Tea was a status symbol and became, as the seventeenth century moved into the eighteenth, the centre of many social gatherings.
A Georgian tea party
The silver tea set we have here is exactly the kind of set that a wealthy family during the Georgian era would have used to serve tea to guests. It consists of a tea caddy, a teapot and a hot water jug with a warming stand and was made by Paul Storr: the jug and teapot are date stamped 1809 and 1812. Storr was a popular silversmith during the Regency period (1811-1820) in England, so this set would have been the height of fashion to own.
Teatime would have been presided over by the mistress of the house: during this period, that would have been the third Marchioness of Lansdowne, Lady Louisa (née Fox-Strangways). It was meant to be a cosy occasion, encouraging conversation and relaxation amongst friends. Therefore, very few of the servants would be helping Lady Louisa. Rather, they would wait in the background whilst she would make and serve the tea, occasionally refilling the hot water jug.
By the Regency period, with the shifting of dinner time to the evening and social visiting hours occurring in the afternoon, it was common for some biscuits or light cakes to be offered alongside the brewing of tea. The concept of afternoon tea as we enjoy it today developed across two centuries of tea-drinking and socialising in England, becoming recognisable to us with the small sandwiches, scones and cakes later in the nineteenth century.
unknown artist, eighteenth century, The Tea Party, undated.
Pen and brown ink and gray wash on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper.
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1977.14.5658.
How Lady Louisa might have served tea
All the items we have here at Bowood would have been essential to Lady Louisa’s serving of tea to guests.
The tea caddy would be used to store the tea safely. They were often lockable as the tea itself was so expensive, with the mistress of the house keeping the key. In Jane Austen’s home at Chawton, she kept the key to the store cupboard where the valuable tea was kept.
The hot water pot with the heater underneath was to help make the tea leaves last longer: as tea was so expensive, it was costly even for the richest of families to make a fresh brew each time. Instead, Lady Louisa would refresh the leaves with hot water from a pot like this one. She would be at the centre and in charge, overseeing an important social occasion.
