Tea - in Britain

Tea has long been the nation's number one pick-me-up. At first, tea drinking in Britain spread slowly because if its cost. As supplies started to arrive from India, prices dropped rapidly. They dropped so much that in 1744 Duncan Forbes wrote '...the meanest labouring man could compass the purchase of it...'. And so our love of the British cuppa began, which transformed Britain as it had done China and Japan.

Tea gardens

A photograph of an earthenware lead-glazed teapot from England depicting an Indian scene.
Image: This highly elaborate English teapot with its Indian scene was a popular design during the days of the tea drinking Victorians.

As its popularity spread, tea was served alongside other drinks in coffee shops, which particularly flourished between 1660 and 1720. Coffee houses declined in importance during the beginning of the 1700s, but tea did not. It moved to new venues of pleasure gardens.

In the gardens it played a role in entertainment. By 1732 an evening could be spent dancing, watching fireworks or browsing interesting objects at tea gardens, rounded off by a serving of tea. From tea gardens came the idea of the tea dance, which remained fashionable in Britain until World War II when they lost popularity.

Teatime

In 1864 a bread shop started to serve food and drinks on the premises. Tea was dispensed to favoured customers and soon attracted many more. This was the start of a passion for tea shops which spread throughout Britain.

Tea drinking began to spread at a semi-private level. Afternoon tea is said to have been conceived in the early 1800s with the 7th Duchess of Bedford. It was taken around four or five o'clock in the afternoon to stifle hunger pangs between lunch and dinner. This custom went hand-in-hand with the Earl of Sandwich's earlier invention of putting a filling between two slices of bread. These habits started a trend that is still a part of British life.

As the drinking of tea became a central social event, it altered the rhythm of the British day and the nature of meals. Breakfast had previously been a heavy meal with meat and ale, but was transformed into a lighter meal. And afternoon tea for the working class became the main meal of the day. It was taken with meat, bread and cakes and became known as high tea.