Lord Melbourne’s Tea Etiquette

Lord Melbourne (1779-1848) was British Prime Minister on two occasions. The first  ended when he was dismissed by King William IV in 1834. He was the last British PM to be dismissed by a Monarch. Six months later he was re-appointed and served for six more years. He is best remembered for being Prime Minister in Queen Victoria’s early years. He coached her in the ways of politics, acting almost as a private secretary and confidante. – Public domain image

Manners at Tea Drinking

On one point at least we may congratulate ourselves, and that is on the improvement in tea table manners. Some old fashioned folk used to signalize the conclusion of their tea drinking by turning the cup upside down in the saucer. In other circles, the recognized sign of a disinclination for more tea was the placing of the spoon in the cup instead of in the saucer. 

When the Queen's first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, was a lad, residing at Glasgow in the house of one of the university professors —about the end of the last century—he wrote to his mother an account of the Glasgow table manners. “We drink healths at dinner,” he writes, “hand round the cake at tea and desire to have no more exactly in the same manner that we used to behave at Hatfield, at Eton and at Cambridge.”— All the Year Round, 1893

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

Georgian Era Tea Etiquette

Etiquette demanded that the tea should be tasted from the spoon, and that the hostess should then inquire: “Is your tea agreeable?”

“Tea Drinking a Century Ago”

as it was told in 1899

A hundred years ago it was considered a lack of courtesy to take much cream or sugar in one's tea. Etiquette demanded that the tea should be tasted from the spoon, and that the hostess should then inquire: “Is your tea agreeable?”

Modern women would be shocked by a fashionable lady of those days who cooled her tea with her breath, yet Young wrote of a certain bewildering Lady Betty: Her two red lips affected zephyrs blow, To cool the Bohea and inflame the beau; While one white finger and a thumb conspire, To lift the cup and make the world admire. – Sacramento Daily Union, 1899

 

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