As I mentioned in a previous blog post, How About Afternoon Tea?, do not get a Georgian tea party and afternoon tea mixed up. They are very different things.
Tea drinking in Britain was popularised by the court of Charles II. By the end of the Georgian era (1837), tea had taken over from beer as the most popular drink consumed by all social classes.
For the upper classes, tea drinking became ingrained in the daily routine. It became a habit to serve it about one or two hours after dinner and households invited their acquaintances to “drink tea” with them. “Drinking tea” then became an evening entertainment. During the Regency (1811-1820), the tea business expanded by 150 per cent.
A Bit About Tea
During the Georgian era, all tea came from China—production in India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) had yet to begin. The East India Trading Company monopolised tea imports.
There were two varieties of tea for Georgians to drink. The upper classes enjoyed green tea in four varieties: imperial, singlo, gunpowder and hyson (one of the most expensive). The working classes enjoyed the cheaper black tea, also known as bohea, which came in five varieties: souchong, camho, pekoe, congo and common bohea.
A pound of green tea cost around eight shillings (hyson could cost ten shillings or more) and common bohea cost just under two shillings. A pound of tea made approximately 200 cups, so this made it cheaper per cup than beer and why even the poorest families would set aside money to spend on tea and sugar. They also re-used the tea leaves to make it go further.
At the other end of society, if you were lucky enough to be invited to “drink tea” they would probably offer you a cup of hyson tea sweetened with refined sugar and a spoonful of cream.
What to Expect at Georgian Tea Parties
If you received an invitation to a Georgian tea party, you should expect it to be an evening of entertainment (not at four or five o’clock in the afternoon).
Inviting someone to a tea party, rather than dinner, enabled households to save on the costs of feeding others a meal. It also allowed a larger number of guests because the lady of the house did not have to worry about seating them all around the dining table.
“We drank tea again yesterday with the Tilsons, and met the Smiths—I find all these little parties very pleasant.”
Jane Austen, April 1811.
The lady of the house kept the tea locked away, to prevent the servants from pilfering it. She, or her daughters, would unlock the tea caddy and prepare the tea in front of the guests before serving it.
You may also find a selection of finger foods. As you will already have dined at home before attending, they may offer you a selection of nibbles and treats, such as:
- Candied fruits
- Glacé fruits
- Gingerbread
- Crumpets or toast (with butter, of course)
- Seed cake
- Shrewsbury cake
Unlike afternoon tea, an event mostly associated with ladies, a tea party was treated like another evening social event and attended by all. Georgian tea parties offered conversation, cards, parlour games, reading, music, and dancing.
Sources
The Time Traveller’s Guide to Regency Britain (2020) by Ian Mortimer
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