The Historical Society’s Fundraising Committee has become known for its Ladies’ Victorian Teas, complete with sweets, savories, teas, and coffee. While our teas tend to feature exciting and entertaining programs, the question comes to mind, what is the history behind tea?
Tea’s beginnings start in the subtropical and tropical transitional forests of Southeast Asia, predominately China, where the tea plant is native. Chinese mythological tradition traces the beginning of tea to 2737 B.C. when Chinese Emporor Shen Nung sips boiled drinking water into which a tea leaf had floated. It wasn’t until the 8th century, when Chinese tea scholar, Lu Yu writes the first book about tea describing tea cultivation, processing, preparation and tea rituals of ancient Asia.
For hundreds of years, the production of tea was a guarded secret. In 1557, Portugal colonizes the Chinese port of Macau, and began to bring tea back to Europe. Arabs also bring tea to Europe through their trade with the Venetians in Italy around 1559. As trade routes were established between Asia and the West, tea found itself traveling all over the world.
During the 17th century, black tea was invented (known as “red tea” in China where it originated). Until this point teas were green or oolong. Russia and China worked to establish a safe route for trade caravans, the Chinese ambassador to Moscow made a gift of several chests of tea to Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich, making tea a much desired import.
As tea migrated west, the ceremony of tea drinking also changed and adapted. The original tea ceremony of the East, was and continues to be, meditative. Tea for Westerners became a casual daily respite or regal societal affair along with the savories and sweets.
Even though Portuguese and Dutch traders were importing tea to Western Europe for decades, King Charles II’s marriage to the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza in 1662, made tea-drinking popular among the British aristocracy. As time progressed into the 17th and 18th centuries, knowing how to properly use tea equipment and owning fine porcelain china is one way that set the poor apart from royalty. Since it took between 12 and 15 months for the shipments of tea to arrive in Britain by sea - the costs of shipment and heavy taxation also kept tea as initially for only the wealthy to enjoy.
Tea was initially only enjoyed by the aristocracy across Europe, and served as a digestive after the lengthy midday meal, while also doubling as evening entertainment. Guests would withdraw to the drawing room to share news and gossip over tea and slices of bread, crumpets, toast, or cake. In 1784, when the British Parliament passed the Commutation Act, which reduced the duties on imported tea from 119% to 12.5%, tea became more affordable to the middle class.
The first tea in America was brought by the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam in the early 1600s, however, the custom of taking tea did not take off instantly.
As the custom grew in Colonial America, tea drinking mirrored those customs of the English, until the Revolutionary War. The Boston Tea Party grew out of the massive taxation, and one of the main reasons America became a coffee-drinking nation. Without tea from Great Britain, revolutionaries began to experiment with herbal teas, it wasn’t until independence was won that the United States once again embraced British tea.
The development of refrigeration, starting with the ice house, icebox, and commercial manufacturing of pure ice, brought about another popular item - iced teas. Early American cookbooks indicate that tea has been served cold since the early nineteenth century, the popular recipe was for cold green tea punches, which were heavily spiked with liquor.
As time progressed into the Victorian Era, the British Afternoon Tea was born. Much of this was due to the technological advancement of artificial lighting, which moved the dinner hour from midday to later in the evening, so instead of taking tea after dinner, it moved to an earlier slot in the late afternoon. The popularity of afternoon tea in Britain is attributed to Anna Marie Russell, 7th Duchess of Bedford, of Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire.
Afternoon tea became a ritual for afternoon social visits. Guests gathered in the drawing room or parlor, where dainty finger food was served so finely dressed guests could hold their teacup while also helping themselves to refreshments.
This differed from the ‘high tea’ which was served around the same time in working class homes. High tea was a hearty meal which consisted of cold meats, cheeses and bread, eaten when the men came home from the factories or fields. The Industrial Revolution saw people traveling more for work, and they would take lunch with them, so they looked forward to a main meal when they got home in the evening around 6:00 p.m.
Afternoon tea was not a meal, but a social event where ladies went to meet friends, catch up on gossip, chat about the latest fashions and scandals, bee seen in the right places among the right people and, in passing, drink tea and nibble on little finger food. After the trend was set, all of fashionable society started to hold teas to suit any occasion - teas for groups of 10 to 20 visitors, small intimate teas for 3 or 4 friends, tea in the garden, ‘at home’ teas, tea receptions for up to 200 people, tennis teas, croquet teas, and picnic teas. The growing middle class imitated the rich and found was to hold teas in an economical way to entertain several friends without having to spend too much money.
In the late 1800s, miniature tea set sales began. Today, we view these sets as gifts for children, but these were originally created by china manufacturers as salesmen’s samples. As the salesmen made their presentation, the mothers wanted to buy the sets for their children.
In 1877, Philadelphia’s department store Wanamaker’s instituted the first American department store food service. Thus entered tea rooms, which earned a reputation as places where well-behaved ladies enjoyed luncheons. Department store tea rooms often established and maintained a standard of bourgeois decorum where good manners were required and ladyhood was cherished. They also served delicate tea sandwiches made of fig, lettuce, watercress, and a greater range of teas than in most tea rooms.
In the 1870s, recipe books for afternoon tea menus began to be published. Sweet and savory items joined the tea table. Scones, which we view as being an essential food item for tea, began to appear at afternoon tea around 1890, originally being more of a farmhouse food that would be quickly put in the oven when a friend pops over.
By the early 1900s, the 3-tier tea tray emerges. Upscale hotels formalized the 3 course tiered tray. Hotel rooms held tea dances, featuring full orchestras, popular in the pre-World War I era and becoming even more popular once Prohibition started in 1920. The department store tea room also rose in popularity, but the menu featured popular luncheon items. Women and young ladies would dress in their best and treat themselves to an elegant ladies lunch.
As tea grew in popularity, women’s clubs, charities, suffragist groups, and alumni associates held tearooms and at home, as meetings and fundraisers.
In 1903, the open-mesh fabric tea leaf holder was patented by Roberta Lawson and Mary McLaren of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The teabag was not commercially produced until the 1920s. It was at the St. Louis World Fair in 1904 that iced tea was popularized. Richard Blechynden, a tea dealer, was trying to introduce Indian tea to Americans, but the stifling weather caused few takers, but after dropping some ice cubes into he brew, people came flocking.
In 1910, rural tea rooms began to crop up along the new roads of America. A few carloads could fill a small tea room. The boom for tea rooms came in the 1920s during prohibition. Since restaurant-goers were unable to partake alcohol, they turned to tea rooms for their meals out. Tea rooms were popular for working women, shoppers, and businessmen, as well as whole families eating their evening meal.
Indiana was not different, having different tea rooms throughout its history. In 1926, the Rose Tea Room, conducted by Mrs. Carl Yockenberg, opened at 16 South Tenth Street. Mr. And Mrs. J.D. Lewis ran the Lewis Tea Room in Indiana at 546 Water Street for 17 years, ending their ownership in 1970. Pete Kubeta purchased the business and began operating Kubeta’s Tea Room.
The 1930s saw tea dances being held in ballrooms, town halls and hotels, drawing hundreds of young people on weekend afternoons.
After World War II, to help streamline operations, department stores began whittling down their menus featuring quick lunch specials keeping with luncheonettes rather than stately dining rooms. The department store tea room vanished.
Tea is still an important part of dinners and get togethers, but not as it had during the Victorian Era and early 1900s. The Historical Society keeps the tradition of tea alive during our Spring and Fall teas, while also serving special teas, such as our Holiday Tea being held on November 23, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
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