Polite Society School of Etiquette

Polite Society School of Etiquette

The Art and Proper Etiquette of Afternoon Tea

Excerpt from book:

Victorian Afternoon Tea

Brief History

An old legend credits the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in the 28th century B.C. with the discovery of tea.  As the story is told, the health conscious emperor knew that boiling water before drinking seemed to protect people from disease.  He always insisted on having his water boiled and that simple precaution led to a wonderful revelation.  One day while touring the provinces, the emperor stopped for a rest with his entourage.  Servants gathered branches from a nearby evergreen bush to build a fire for boiling the emperor’s water.  A passing wind blew leaves from the bush into the boiling pot and soon a delightful aroma issued forth.  Intrigued, the emperor quickly sipped a bit of the infusion.  He immediately declared that the refreshing brew must have medicinal qualities and ordered his servants to gather leaves from the bush to take back to the palace.

News of the emperor’s discovery spread quickly throughout the provinces.  Soon everyone in China was drinking tea and the infusion of that evergreen plant quickly became an important part of the Chinese culture.  Over the centuries, the knowledge and appreciation of tea gradually spread to other parts of the Orient.

After hundreds of years, tea arrived in England and by 1660 tea was flowing everywhere on the island.  One Samuel Pepys, renowned 17th century diarist, noted in 1660 that he had his very first “cup of tee of which I had never drunk before.”  In 1662, when England’s King Charles II married Portugal’s Princess Catherine of Braganza, part of her dowry was a chest of tea.  It was this queen’s love for tea and her influence on the royal court that influ­enced the spread of the “new drink.”  Tea merchants were soon offering tea as an elixir for just about anything that ailed anyone.  It was first served in public coffeehouses and in outdoor “tea gardens” then increasingly in homes.

Around 1650, Dutch ships carrying the new drink to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam introduced it to the American colonies.  It took another twenty years for the rest of the colonies to become acquainted with tea, though no one really had any idea of how to use it properly.  Americans would let the tea brew and stew for hours, creating a dark bitter drink.  They also salted and ate the used leaves on buttered bread.  It wasn’t until 1674, when the British took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York, that the custom of tea drinking as we now know it began.

Tea was enjoyed in the American Colonies until the late 18th century.  But when King George III decided to use tea as a source of revenue, and raised the import tax on tea sent to the Colonies, the independent-minded Americans rebelled.  In 1773 the colonists dressed as Native Americans and dumped a shipload of tea into the Boston Harbor.  This event became known as the Boston Tea Party and was one of many that propelled the colonies toward independence and probably indirectly led to a marked preference for coffee in the United States.

Around 1840, the custom of afternoon tea began in England and is credited to one of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting, Anna Maria Stanhope, known as the Duchess of Bedford.  In England at the time, people ate a heavy breakfast, a late dinner, and very little in between.  Toward mid afternoon the Duchess routinely experienced a “sinking feeling” which she remedied by dining in her boudoir with tea, cakes, tarts, and biscuits.  Others soon followed the Duchess’ lead and in a few decades the custom of “taking tea” in the afternoon became well established.  At first the practice was limited to the upper classes, but it eventually became so popular that tea shops and tearooms began opening for the enjoyment of the general public.  This elegant custom became greatly popularized during the height of the Victorian Era making “teatime” a regular pastime of the proper English Lady.

By the late 19th century, teatime had acquired its’ own formal etiquette.  Tea services were made of silver or china.  Fine linens were used for tea cloths and serviettes (table napkins).  Tea gowns were loose and flowing with matching hats and gloves.  The tea itself was imported from India or Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), colonies of the British Empire. With the tea came decorated platters of savories (dainty finger sandwiches), scones with jams or homemade preserves and clotted cream, toast with cinnamon, petits fours (small cakes cut from pound or sponge cakes and frosted), and other delicacies that came to be known as “tea food.”  In working class homes, afternoon tea became a much heartier affair with cold meats, cheeses, and breads.  This evening meal was called “high tea” and often replaced dinner.

The United States can claim two distinct contributions when it comes to tea, both dating from the 20th century.  In 1904, visitors to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis sweltered in a heat wave and shunned the hot brew offered by Indian tea growers.  An Englishman named Richard Blechynden, who represented the tea growers, experimented with pouring the tea over ice in order to entice fair visitors.  The result was a success.  Iced tea now accounts for 80 percent of the tea drunk in the United States.  The second contribution is the tea bag, the brainstorm of an American tea merchant named Thomas Sullivan, who hit on the idea of providing samples to his customers in small silk pouches or “a tea leaf holder.” Sullivan’s customers soon discovered that the pouches could be put directly in teapots.  Orders soon came pouring in for the tea packaged in those little bags and Sullivan patented his brainstorm.

Nearly five thousand years have gone by since Emperor Shen Nung sipped the first cup of tea on that Chinese roadside and almost two centuries have elapsed since the Duchess of Bedford first thought of tea and cakes to carry her through until dinnertime.  So much time, yet some things do grow better with age.  Tea can be enjoyed today with a sense of history and a sense of kinship with those who made significant contributions to the development of this lovely pastime.

Enjoy!