Memories of British Tea Drinking

There are many ways to enjoy tea. Curling up by the fireplace on a cloudy afternoon with a cup of tea can be the highlight of the day. Just because it’s solitary tea doesn’t mean it should be dreary. Arrange some light food in a plate, make it look pretty and enjoy this quiet time by yourself. Kids can also entertain themselves with tea just like the young children in the “Mary Poppins” or “Alice in Wonderland” classic movies. 

Brewing the Perfect Cuppa 

(tea, that is)

To some, drinking a cup of tea is a ritual. To others, it is simply a time to spend a soothing afternoon with friends. Quite easily, visions of scones, strawberry jam, wafer-thin sandwiches and china cups come to mind. Regardless of what images partaking of tea evokes, people have long been fascinated by this charming custom. The popularity of drinking tea has both diminished and flourished since the Chinese discovered it as a suitable beverage about 4,000 years ago. According to legend, Emperor Shen Nung, who was known as the Divine Healer, made it a habit to drink only boiled water after determining that those who did were sick less often. One day, sitting by a tea bush, some tea leaves found their way into his pot. Seeing that the resulting aroma was pleasant, Nung drank his first cup of tea. But it wasn’t until the 16th century that tea was introduced to Europe by Portuguese merchants who brought silks, spices and other Eastern items into the continent. 

While other European countries found tea flavorless in the mid-1600s, England and Russia found it soothing and relaxing. In the 17th century, tea drinking found its spot in English coffee houses. By the mid-1700s, tea gardens emerged. These lush, landscaped gardens were a meeting ground for the fashionable to chat, drink tea and gossip. By the end of the century, however, tea gardens were less prevalent and tea drinking developed into an at-home activity in England. What is now known as afternoon tea can be attributed to Anna, Duchess of Bedford, who realized this ritual was a way to satisfy her appetite during the void between lunch and dinner.

In those days, a day’s worth of meals consisted of a substantial breakfast, a light lunch and a heavy dinner late in the evening. Feeling a bit faint around five o’clock, the Duchess resorted to drinking tea and petite sandwiches to make it to dinner. This sort of “afternoon tea” is quite a contrast to the “high tea” served then in working class homes where hearty cold meats, breads and cheeses were served when the men returned home from work. Although Coronadan Jan Lichty hasn’t lived in England since 1939, her memories of having tea are still fresh in her mind. “The tea I remember, was with the dainty little cups, cucumber sandwiches and wafer-thin sandwiches,” Lichty said. “As children, we had tea, milky tea, with cakes and snacks.” 

“Don’t forget the war changed everything,” she said. “It was a different world then.” Barbara Taylor, a Coronado resident for most of her adult life, remembers growing up in war-torn England and having tea with her family. During the war, Taylor said a lot of English families would sit down for breakfast with a cup of tea and other breakfast items. At school. Taylor would have a heavy meal with tea at mid-day. After school, Taylor would come home to find tea, bread and butter, jams and cakes to share with her parents and sister. Sometimes, cheese or egg dishes made their way onto the table. “Five o’clock was quite a typical time for an English (working class) family to have tea,” Taylor remarked. 

Sarah O’Sullivan, who grew up in the southwest region of England, also remembers sitting around the dinner table and having traditional tea with scones, clotted cream and jam. “That’s extremely fattening,” she joked. “It’s one of the things we miss here.” Like Taylor, O’Sullivan recalls having a hearty lunch at mid-day and coming home for tea around 5 p.m. She used to come home for lunch at times, since her Dad owned a shop nearby and could join them. “It was nice because it was family time, we all sat down together,” O'Sullivan recalled. “Times have changed a bit now in England," Taylor pointed out. “Customs have shifted somewhat.” Most men are no longer able to come home from work at mid-day to have their cooked meal with tea. That tradition has slowly faded. “England is much more like America, more on the run,” added O’Sullivan, who’s been living in Coronado for the past two years. Her husband, who is part of the Royal Navy, is on an exchange with the U.S. Navy. Nowadays, O’Sullivan and her family have their main meal in the evening when her husband returns from work. “Sunday is the closest you get to having an afternoon tea.” 

Taylor, who travels to England frequently, still drinks tea for breakfast but now has a lighter lunch. She continues to drink her afternoon tea around 4 p.m. everyday before her evening meal. “I think it gives you a lift,” she said. “It’s a shame more people don’t stop and take a break at 4 o’clock in the afternoon,’’ Having a cup of tea in the afternoon brings back fond memories for Shelia Davis Lawrence who recalls quiet afternoons drinking tea with her grandmother. “I guess it’s a quiet time in the afternoon, a more gracious time,” Lawrence said, “It can grow into an interesting past-time as an adult.” Lawrence added that she sees drinking tea as an activity for all occasions, not as something stuffy. 

There are many ways to enjoy tea. Curling up by the fireplace on a cloudy afternoon with a cup of tea can be the highlight of the day. Just because it’s solitary tea doesn’t mean it should be dreary. Arrange some light food in a plate, make it look pretty and enjoy this quiet time by yourself. Kids can also entertain themselves with tea just like the young children in the “Mary Poppins” or “Alice in Wonderland” classic movies. Tea for two? This is a great opportunity for a couple to cozy up together and share a romantic time together. Power teas are also catching on in hotels worldwide. They’re a great way to top off power breakfasts and power lunches for busy executives. What better way to spend an afternoon with friends than to throw a tea party. Delicate snacks, a good pot of tea and stimulating conversation are sure to be a success. 

“The properness of tea is not in the elegance of the implements or delicacies of the food—it’s how food is served,” Lawrence said. It is this hospitality and graciousncss as a hostess that Lawrence finds pleasing when having tea. Prompted by her memories as a young girl, Lawrence recently invited a group of Brownies for tea at Crown Manor. The experience to share tea with these young girls was something Lawrence said she cherished. “It’s like passing on a part of history.” Lawrence, like many others, prefers tea to coffee, yet drinking coffee has seen a rise in popularity with the British—for all the wrong reasons though. “My husband has learned to like coffee because he can’t stand the American tea,” noted O'Sullivan. Lichty, however, rarely drinks tea anymore because it’s more convenient to make coffee. 

“Once in a blue moon (I drink tea),” Lichty said. “But if I want to make the effort to do tea, I want to do it right ” Which brings to mind the ubiquitous tea bag, which dates back to 1904 when Thomas Sullivan, a New York tea merchant, started sending his customers samples of his teas in silk pouches. The idea caught on because of its practicality and has even been accepted now in England, according to Taylor. However, it is the way tea is served in many American restaurants that has given tea bags a bad reputation. O'Sullivan said she will never forget the first time she came across tea in the United States. A waitress at a restaurant brought a jug of lukewarm water to her table with tea bags next to it. “I thought, ‘This isn’t tea’,” O’Sullivan said with a laugh. “It tastes peculiar when the water’s not boiling.” Lichty’s great aunt also had a funny encounter with tea bags when they first came out in England years ago. Lichty remembers her great aunt cutting out the top of the tea bag and pouring the tea leaves into the cup. “She tipped it out, she didn’t know any better until I showed her how to do it,” Lichty said. — Stories by Karen Koehler, Coronado Eagle and Journal Reporter, 1991

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia©️ Etiquette Encyclopedia

A Duchess of Industriousness

The Duchess of Bedford as depicted in Julian Fellowes’ latest period drama, “Belgravia.” 
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“When Mrs Trenchard arrives at the grand home of the Duchess of Bedford (pictured played by Naomi Frederick) - the first scene set in London's Belgravia, 26 years after the Battle of Waterloo - she informs her host she is ‘so interested by your invention of afternoon tea’”—From DailyMail.UK

Of English and American Girls

An English traveler writes she can assure you that, having lived in different castles and manor-houses of Great Britain, and been accustomed to the industrious habits of duchesses and countesses, I was utterly astonished at the idleness of American fine ladies. No Englishwoman of rank (with the exception of a few parvenues), from the Queen downward, would remain for one half hour unemployed, or sit in a rocking-chair unless seriously ill. 

They almost all, with hardly an exception, copy the business letters of their husbands, fathers or brothers; attend minutely to the wants of the poor around them, and even take part in their amusements and sympathize with their sorrows; visit and superintend the schools; work in their own gardens; see to their household concerns; think about their visitors; look over the weekly accounts, not only of domestic expenses, but often those of the farm and estate; manage penny clubs in conjunction with the working classes, to help them to keep themselves; and with all these occupations, by early hours, they keep up their acquaintance with the literature and politics of the day, and cultivate the accomplishments of music and drawing, and often acquire, besides, some knowledge of scientific pursuits. 

The late Marchioness of Lansdowne was so well acquainted with the cottagers in her neighborhood, that she used to visit and look at the corpses of the dead, because she found that her doing so soothed and comforted the bereaved. I have known her to shut herself up with a mad woman in her poor dwelling, who used to lock the door and could not be induced to admit any one else. Lady Lansdowne’s only daughter used one hundred guineas (given her by her father-in-law, Lord Suffolk, to buy a bracelet,) to build pig-styes, with his permission, at her husband’s little country residence, she educates her own children without assistance —teaching the boys Latin and the girls all the usual branches of education. 

It is said that Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford invented afternoon tea sometime during the 1840s. Although her simple pot of tea with a light snack was originally introduced to counteract her hunger pangs, it soon developed into a popular social occasion among the fashionable classes. Now we know she was much more industrious than history has given her credit for!

The late Duchess of Bedford, I accidentally discovered when on a visit to Woburn, had for thirty years of her married life, risen at 6 o’clock, Summer and Winter, lit her own fire, made some tea for the Duke and herself, and then, as he wrote his own letters of business, she copied them, and they, came down to a large party of guests at 10 o’clock, to dispense breakfast, without saying one word of their morning avocations; so that you might have been a visitor at the house without finding out that the Duke or Duchess had transacted the necessary business of the day before, perhaps, you had risen. I rather mention those that are gone to their reward than write of women still among us ; but you may believe me when I say that I am constantly among those who live such lives of energy and usefulness, but they so employ themselves without ostentation or an idea that they are doiug more than their simple duty. — The Christian Witness, 1872

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia©️ Etiquette Encyclopedia 

1920s Afternoon Tea Etiquette

 An informal outdoor tea in the open, on the lawn or in the garden, is perfect for when the weather is nice, or if your guests aren't planning on staying too long.

Afternoon Teas

Afternoon teas are of two kinds, formal and informal, and the informal outdoor tea in the open, on the lawn or in the garden, is a variant of the latter variety. Here the tea wagon comes into play, and tea is often tea in name only, since at summer outdoor teas not only iced tea, but iced coffee, iced chocolate or punch are often served.

The Informal Tea

Do not set a table for the informal tea. The tea service is merely brought to the sun parlor, drawing room or living room in which the tea is to be served, and placed on the table. There the hostess makes and pours the tea, unless she prefers to have it brought in on a tea tray already made for pouring.

The tea service comprises: a teakettle for boiling water with filled alcohol lamp and matches; a tea caddy with teaspoon and (if only a few cups are to be made) a tea ball. A tea creamer, cut sugar, a saucer of sliced lemon, and cups and saucers with spoon on cup saucer, as well as tea napkins complete the service. The water brought in the teakettle should be hot. If this precaution is observed, the tea will boil very soon after the lamp is lighted. The sandwiches served at an informal afternoon tea should be very simple: lettuce, olive or nut butter, or plain bread and butter, nor should the small cakes also passed be elaborate or rich.


The Formal Tea

The formal tea—a tea becomes formal as soon as cards are sent out for it—is a very different affair. As many as four ladies may pour, two during the first, and two during the second hour. Friends of the hostess—they serve all refreshments, though waitresses assist, removing soiled cups and plates and bringing in fresh ones—preside at either table end, and the table is decorated (flowers and candles). At one end of the luncheon cloth (or the table may be laid with doilies) stands the service tray, with teapot, hot-water pot, creamer, sugar bowl with tongs and cut sugar, and sliced lemons in dish with lemon fork. The tray also contains cup and saucers (each saucer with spoon, handle paralleling cup). The coffee, bouillon or chocolate service is established in the same manner at the other end of the table. If coffee is served, the service tray is equipped with urn, cream and sugar; if chocolate, whipped cream in bowl with ladle; if bouillon, the urn alone.

Each lady who pours must have a large napkin convenient to guard her gown. Arranged along the table should be plates of sandwiches and cakes, bonbon dishes and dishes with salted nuts. But the table must not be crowded. This important rule is responsible for the existence of the frappe table.

The frappe table holds the afternoon tea punch. Since the dining room is apt to be well filled as it is, the frappe table had best be established in some other room. On its luncheon cloth is set the punch or frappe bowl with ladle, and individual ices, frozen creams (not too rich or elaborate) or punch are served in frappe or punch bowls by a friend of the hostess. The small plates on which the frappe glasses are served should be piled on the table with doilies (linen always) between the plates. When served, the glass is filled with the sherbet or cream, and a sherbet spoon laid at the right-hand side of plate (a tray of sherbet spoons belongs to the frappe table equipment, as well as a filled cake basket, dishes of candy, piles of small plates and small linen napkins). Unless you are entertaining guests to the number of a hundred or more, never use paper doilies at a formal afternoon tea!

A pretty custom dictates that young girl friends of the hostess serve the guests. They provide the latter with plate and napkin, ask their choice of beverage, and serve it, together with sandwiches and cakes. Or the plates and napkins may be handed the guests as they enter by a waitress stationed at the door, before they are served by the young girls.

A salad should never be offered at a formal afternoon tea! To do so is to commit a social solecism.” — From Lillian B. Lansdown's 1922, “How to Prepare and Serve a Meal; and Interior Decoration.”

 Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia