Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Drinking tea’

“Would You Care for Weak Tea or Strong Tea?” How the Dowager Countess of Grantham Served Tea to Her Guests

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, Edwardian Life, Film adaptation, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, PBS Movie Adaptation, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 21, 2011| 35 Comments »

Tea is always served by the host/hostess or a friend, never by servants. Tea is never poured out, then passed several cups at a time, the way coffee may be, because it cools very quickly. Instead, it is always taken by the guest directly from the hands of the pourer.” – Etiquette Scholar

The ceremony of making tea is almost always included in costume dramas like Downton Abbey or a Jane Austen film, such as Emma. When Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess of Grantham invited her daughter-in-law, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), to the Dower House for tea in Downton Abbey, the arranged time was most likely at four o’clock in the afternoon.

 

Cora and the Dowager Countess sit down to tea

In one particular scene, the two women entered the drawing room in which a small table had been laid out with an elaborate tea set, fine china, and silver spoons. An assortment of tiny sandwiches, cookies, and scones were arranged upon a beautiful batttenburg lace tablecloth that covered the table. Low tea (an Edwardian dowager would never have said high tea) was meant to blunt the appetite before dinner.

The duchess pours boiling water over the tea leaves in the tea pot

A tea ceremony provided an intimate setting between the hostess and her guests, for it was the hostess who prepared and served the tea, catering to each guest and handing them their custom-prepared tea one cup at a time. In this time honored ritual, one of the most important questions the dowager would ask was: “Would you care for weak tea or strong tea?” Cora’s preference would guide the Countess in the next stage of tea preparation, for if she said “strong tea,” then the Dowager would pour the tea as she had prepared it into Cora’s cup. Had Cora said “weak tea”, the Countess would pour a smaller quantitiy of the brew into the china cup, then top it off with hot water.

Cora eats a crustless sandwich as her mother-in-law prepares the tea

The Dowager would then ask her guest how much milk and sugar to add. She would have poured boiling water over the tea leaves in a tea pot, and steeped the leaves for three minutes, all the while conversing with her guests. At this point the water was no longer boiling. Then the Countess would pour in the milk. (If she poured it in first, she would have found it difficult to judge the strength of the tea by its color.) Hudson, the butler in Upstairs, Downstairs, said about pouring milk into tea: “Those of us downstairs put the milk in first, while those upstairs put the milk in last.”

In this instance, the Dowager leaves her guest in the middle of serving tea, a faux pas

History of Low Tea

On September 25, 1660, Samuel Pepys recorded: “did send for a cupp of tee (a China drink) of which I had never drank before.” By June 1667, tea was considered to be a healthy drink. One day Pepys arrived home to find his wife making tea, which his apothecary had found good for her cold.

Emma, 1996 (with Kate Beckinsale). Emma and Harriet drink tea during Mrs. Elton's first visit

Samuel Johnson was a self-described “hardened and shameless tea drinker, who has, for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea muses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.” His chronicler James Boswell observed that “It was perfectly normal for him to drink sixteen cups in very quick succession, and I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relisht the infusion of that fragrant leaf than did Johnson.”

Silver tea set by Odiot, Paris, circa 1880. Image @A.Pash and Sons, Mayfair

Until the 1760’s, only the rich could afford teapots, which were made of silver. Then in 1765 Queen Charlotte commissioned Josiah Wedgwood to create a tea service made from his quality cream colored earthenware, which he named Queen’s Ware (with the Queen’s permission, of course) and gave to her as a gift. From that moment on he was the Queen’s potter. Wedgwood’s creamware was thin, attractive and durable. After receiving the Queen’s patronage, his firm became quite famous. The attractive new tableware quickly became popular, and by 1775 other manufacturers, including those on the Continent, had widely copied Wedgwood, imitating Queensware and creating increasingly fanciful teapots. It is said that this tableware was instrumental in spreading the popularity of tea.

Wedgwood Queensware, c. 1790. Image @Christies

In 1840, the Duchess of Bedford began serving tea with refreshments in the afternoon to appease her appetite before dinner, and the custom of afternoon tea, or low tea, took off. To read more about drinking tea between the 18th and mid-19th centuries, read my post about Tea in the Regency Era.

Some interesting facts about tea:

  • Notice, this is a change: The difference between high tea and low tea: Low, or afternoon, tea is served at four o’clock with light snacks, such as sandwiches, cookies, and scones. High tea is a full meal served with tea, including meat, bread, side dishes and dessert on a table of regular height. Hence high tea.

16th century tea bowl, Korea

  • Tea cups at first were fashioned after Chinese bowls without handles or saucers. In the mid 1750-s, a handle was added to prevent ladies from burning their fingers.
  • A saucer was once a small dish for sauce. During the Dowager Countess’s day, it was acceptable to pour tea into a cup’s saucer to cool the beverage before drinking it.
  • In the late 17th century, a lady would lay her spoon across the top of her cup to signal that she was through drinking. Other signals included turning the cup upside down, or tapping the spoon against the side of the cup.
  • Filling the cup with tea almost to the rim is considered a faux pas.

"Might I give you this cup?" The Dowager hands her tea to Moseley while visiting Matthew Crawley.

Sources:

Read Full Post »

Tea in the Regency Era

Posted in History, jane austen, Regency Drink, Tea in the Regency era, tagged , on December 9, 2007| 13 Comments »

The old adage that if one must ask for the price of an item, one most likely cannot afford it probably holds true for the lovely furniture for sale in Chappell & McCullar, a fine antique shop. I found several pieces of interest on their website, including a pair of Regency ebonized and parcel-gilt open arm chairs, a lush Regency giltwood and ebonized mirror c. 1820, and this charming rosewood tea caddy. But, ahem, there was no price affixed, and one must take the additional step of contacting the owner to inquire about its cost.Tea was such a precious commodity after its introduction in England during the mid 17th century, that servants were never entrusted with handling the loose leaves. Green and black tea leaves were imported in large chests, from which the loose leaves were measured. The tea was then stored in the customer’s caddy, or cannister, which came with a lock and key to prevent pilfering. According to Miller’s Antique Encyclopedia, caddy is a word derived from ‘kati’, a Malay standard weight of tea.By 1800, the custom of drinking tea in England was almost 150 years old. The first written record on English shores was in Samuel Pepys’ dairy, in an entry written on September 25, 1660, in which he wrote:

To the office, where Sir W Batten, Collonel Slingsby, and I sat a while; … And afterwards did send for a Cupp of Tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before) and went away.

The brew’s popularity soared quickly. Overseas trade in the East Indies flourished, and missionaries in China wrote home about tea’s healing powers. It was widely thought that tea could treat gout, as well as restore one’s mental powers. The brew was relatively safe in an era of contaminated water, since the hot beverage required that water be boiled first.In 1717 Thomas Twining turned his coffee house into a tea shop, and in 1784, Richard Twining, chairman of the tea dealers’ guild, persuaded the government to reduce the import tax on tea, making it much more affordable. By the 1800’s tea was widely drunk by the middle classes. One can imagine that in an era when gin was cheap and led to the ruination of the lower classes, drinking tea was regarded a more wholesome activity.However, tea remained expensive. The British East India Company, which held the monopoly on importing tea until 1834, held prices artificially high for centuries. In addition, the government kept raising taxes on tea in order to finance England’s expensive wars. Smuggling tea became a lucrative business, and shopkeepers and individuals were not averse to purchasing tea leaves on the black market. Be that as it may, by Jane Austen’s day, the drinking of tea had become a regular occurrence, both at home and in public. In a letter to Cassandra, Jane Austen writes of drinking tea at the Public Assembly Rooms in Bath:

Before tea it was rather a dull affair; but then the before tea did not last long, for there was only one dance, danced by four couple. Think of four couple, surrounded by about an hundred people, dancing in the Upper Rooms at Bath. – Jane Austen, May 12, 1801

Although tea was served at home by the hostess, who held the key to the caddy, the elaborate ceremony of afternoon tea, or the custom of serving tea with cakes, scones, and crumpets to stave off hunger pangs before dinner, was not invented until 1840 by the 7th Duchess of Bedford.Interesting tea facts:

  • “Taking tea” is a vulgar expression. Drinking tea is considered the proper phrase.
  • High tea consisted of a full, dinner meal for the common people. Tea was still served, but there would also be meats, fish or eggs, cheese, bread and butter, and cake. It was more of a man’s meal, than a ladies social diversion.

Read more about the fascinating history of tea and tea caddies at these sites:

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: