Article 1: Drinking Tea in Jane Austen’s England
By the time Jane Austen was writing her novels, a cup of tea was so popular that it is easy to forget that it was only a recent newcomer. The new beverages of tea, coffee and chocolate were making a huge impact on Regency diets and customs. While coffee was very much a man's drink, tea quickly became the fashionable beverage for women. The First Coffee Shops Chocolate, coffee and sugar were already popular additions to the diet, especially for breakfast and sweet desserts. While
it was common to drink chocolate and coffee at home, this was the first time
that people would go out and drink in public coffee houses. By pasting daily and weekly newspapers
around the walls of coffee houses, proprietors encouraged customers, men, to make repeat visits as they drank coffee and debated current affairs. Drinking Tea With the first imports of green and black tea from China, it was the turn of women to claim tea as their drink. As tea leaves could be easily reused and it was cheaper than coffee, women could offer it at social occasions in the home. The gentry usually drank
tea at breakfast, afternoon tea and after dinner. Mr Collins notes to Elizabeth
Bennet in Pride and Prejudice the clear distinction between being invited for a full
dinner or just for the drinking of tea after dinner at Rosings by Lady
Catherine de Bourgh.
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“I confess”, said he “ that I should not have been at all surprised by her Ladyship’s asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there (an invitation moreover including the whole party) so immediately after your arrival?” (Pride and Prejudice) Tea Sets A set of accessories quickly sprang up around the ritual of taking tea. The tea leaves were brewed in a pot or urn and served in round cups without handles, placed on a saucer. A jug for the cream, tongs for the sugar cubes and spoons were also mandatory, and to carry all these items a serving tray was a must. Lastly, a tea caddy or chest with a lock secured the precious leaves. For the wealthy, a fine tea set of silver or the best porcelain became another way to show rank and place within the social order. The tea caddy also presented an opportunity for women to demonstrate their skill by decorating the caddy with small rolled up pieces of coloured and gold paper. Fine examples of filigree (or quilling) work on tea caddies from the era remain. Filigree tea caddies became so popular that ready-made boxes, pattern templates and coloured paper could be purchased from cabinet-makers, and the artist’s colour men, the forerunner of the arts store. Visit the Victoria and Albert Museum for a beautiful filigree tea set (1800-1830). |
