Hello etiquette friends! I thought I would start blogging some excerpts from my latest book.
The Art and Proper Etiquette
of Afternoon Tea
Sugar in the 18 century (Jane Austin’s time) was kept locked
up because it was very expensive. It was
sold in many grades, from the highly refined, pure white sugar that only the
well off could afford, down to the darkest of brown sugars used by the
poor. Granulated sugar had been only
recently invented and was not yet widely available. Sugar was molded into large, cone-shaped
loaves weighing several pounds each that had to be broken up or grated before
the sugar could be used. Sugar cubes
would not be invented until 1843 – if people wanted sugar for tea, they had to
first break it into irregular lumps with special tools called “sugar nippers,”
from which practices comes the traditional question “One lump or two?”
From Polite Society School of Etiquette
