Tea and the Tea-Table in Eighteenth-Century England

Tea and the Tea-Table in Eighteenth-Century England

In the eighteenth century tea and coffee were both recent arrivals to English culture and commodities of conspicuous and luxurious consumption. Unlike coffee however, tea retained its luxury status – its high cost and associated rarity making it a favourite drink at Court. It was also seen as a domestic drink more often drunk by women, in contrast to coffee consumed in the male-dominated coffee- houses.

But the history of tea gains a more political edge after the East India Company transformed the market in the mid-eighteenth century. Increased consumption brought with it taxation, smuggling, and conflict between Britain and the Colonies, leading to violent action at the Boston ‘Tea Party’ in December 1773. Tea was also railed against by the Methodist preacher John Wesley, who saw the increase in tea-drinking as the corrupting influence of consumerism on the poor.

This four-volume, reset collection takes the earliest descriptions of tea as a commodity in the mid-seventeenth century, and ends in the early nineteenth century with two key events: the discovery of tea plants in Assam, India in 1823, and the dissolution of the East India Company’s monopoly on the tea trade in 1833.

The majority of the original material is rare and has not previously been the subject of such intense academic study. It gives a great insight into the unique contribution made by tea to British and American culture.

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The work includes a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes, endnotes, a concise bibliography of relevant secondary material and a consolidated index in the final volume.
General Editor: Markman Ellis
Volume Editors: Richard Coulton, Ben Dew and Matthew Mauger
4 Volume Set: c.1600pp: July 2010
Published by Pickering and Chatto.

Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton and Matthew Mauger are all at Queen Mary, University of London. Ben Dew, University of Portsmouth