Tea Etiquette and Use in Early America

 The bitter concoction that New Englanders made with tea was enough to discourage anyone from adopting it. Few knew how to prepare it. Most often they boiled the leaves much too long, and then, after drinking the liquid, they salted the leaves and ate them with butter, as had been done in England in the 1650s. — Pictured above is grouping of Georgian and Regency Era tea equipage, including a rare mote spoon. 
—Photo source, Etiquipedia private library 

“Tea was first brought to America in the late 17th century. At that time cider, ale, and wine were the favorite table drinks, and the bitter concoction that New Englanders made with tea was enough to discourage anyone from adopting it. Few knew how to prepare it. Most often they boiled the leaves much too long, and then, after drinking the liquid, they salted the leaves and ate them with butter, as had been done in England in the 1650s. After New Amsterdam passed into the hands of the English and became New York, it took on English customs, and tea, though still expensive, became more popular.

“At fashionable dinner parties, the ladies withdrew after the meal was finished, and were rejoined later by the gentleman in the parlor. Dessert in the form of fruit, biscuits, or cakes, was then served with tea. Tea was also taken privately in the morning and socially in the afternoon, following the English custom. In the homes of professional men, tea was served with their earlier family supper. And so drinking tea went hand-in-hand with the development of the private and social life of the 18th century. Acquiring the proper equipage and the etiquette for serving tea was the ambition of every housewife with social obligations. And even the very young used dolls’ tea sets in the very serious world of make-believe.” — Patricia Easterbrook Roberts, 1960

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