The Victorian Era

How Did Afternoon Tea Become a Tradition?

Article · Society & Daily Life · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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Afternoon tea is generally credited to Anna Maria Russell, the seventh Duchess of Bedford (1788–1861), in the early 1840s. The Duchess, a prominent figure in the social life of Victorian London, was accustomed to a substantial breakfast and a late dinner served around eight or nine o’clock in the evening, and she found the long gap between the light lunch of the day and the late dinner of the evening left her faint and tired in the late afternoon. She began to ask for a tray of tea, bread and butter, and cakes to be brought to her private rooms in the late afternoon. The habit became a daily ritual; the ritual became a social occasion; and the social occasion became the central social event of the late Victorian day.

The Spread of the Practice

The new practice was quickly adopted by the friends of the Duchess, who invited her to their houses for the afternoon tea. By the 1850s the practice had spread to the great country houses — Woburn, Chatsworth, Longleat, Hatfield, Witley, Eaton Hall — and to the great London houses of the West End. The How did the middle class grow in the Victorian era? adopted it in the 1860s and 1870s, and the working class took it up in the 1880s and 1890s, in the form of the high tea, a more substantial evening meal that combined the features of the afternoon tea with the features of the dinner.

The etiquette of the afternoon tea was codified in the conduct books of the period. Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861) set out the rules of the afternoon tea, the proper dress, the proper conversation, the proper service, the proper china, the proper silver, the proper linen, and the proper timetable (the tea was served at four o’clock in the country, five o’clock in the town, and the day was arranged around it). The morning room or the drawing room was the setting, and the tea was taken with sandwiches, cake, scones, and clotted cream.

The Ritual of the Afternoon Tea

The afternoon tea was a highly ritualised meal. The principal elements were the invitation, the dress, the arrival, the greeting, the conversation, the tea, the sandwiches, the cakes, the scones, the clotted cream, the jam, the butter, the sugar, the milk, and the lemon. The principal utensils were the teapot, the kettle, the cups, the saucers, the plates, the napkins, the trays, the tables, and the cake stand.

The tea itself was, in the early Victorian period, mostly Chinese; Indian and Ceylon tea took over after the coffee blight of the 1870s destroyed the coffee plantations of Ceylon and the planters switched to tea, and Indian tea imports grew from roughly 1 million pounds in 1840 to over 100 million pounds in 1870. The sandwiches were typically small, crustless, and cut into triangles; the cakes were typically small sponge cakes, Madeira cakes, pound cakes, and Dundee cakes; the scones were typically served with clotted cream and strawberry or raspberry jam. The tea set — the silver or porcelain tea service, the tea urn, the muffin dish, the cake stand, the kettle on its stand, the spirit lamp, the strainer, the sugar basin, the cream jug, and the slop basin — was an object of particular display, and the great tea services of the period were a feature of the great country houses.

The afternoon tea was served in the What is a Victorian parlor? of the family home, on the What is a Victorian Chesterfield sofa? of the drawing room, in the conservatory of the country house, in the garden of the country house, or in the Victorian Architecture and Interior Design of the suburban villa.

The Tea Trade and the Empire

The afternoon tea was made possible by the long-distance tea trade from China, India, Ceylon, Japan, Java, Sumatra, and the East Indies. The tea trade was a central feature of the Victorian Economy and Industrialization and of the British Empire in the Victorian Era, and it depended on the Victorian ships that carried the tea from the East to London. The trade was dominated by the great tea merchants of the period, including Twinings (founded 1706), the East India Company (1600–1874), and the tea brokers of Mincing Lane in the City of London. The great tea plantations of the empire were in Assam, Darjeeling, Ceylon, Kenya, Malawi, and India.

The High Tea and the Working Class

The high tea was a more substantial version of the afternoon tea, served in the late afternoon or early evening, which became the central meal of the working-class day. It typically included a pot of tea, a piece of meat (cold bacon, cold beef, or a chop), a piece of fish, an egg, cheese, bread and butter, pickles, chutney, salad, cake, and fruit. The high tea was eaten in the What was a Victorian kitchen like? of the working-class home, or in the What was a Victorian pub like? of the period.

The high tea was a central feature of the Victorian Daily Life and Society, and it was the principal meal of the working class. The temperance campaigners of the period What was the temperance movement? argued that the tea was a more wholesome drink than the beer or the gin, and they promoted the high tea as a more nutritious meal than the traditional diet of the working class.