Comments on: A Nation Of Tea-Drinkers

By: Roy Sheward

Roy Sheward — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:25:17 +0000

The picture at the top says it is Richard Collins’ ‘The Tea Party’ (c.1727), Courtesy of Goldsmiths’ Hall, however I do not think that is right. The Richard Collins picture there is a picture with three people in it. Some other sites say this painting is An English Family at Tea by Joseph van Aken 1720 but looking at the Tate Gallery it clearly is not that. Can’t as yet seem to find out who did this painting

By: Achim

Achim — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 11:00:56 +0000

“Keep Calm and Drink a Cup of ‘Tea.”

Love & Peace
ACHIM

By: Caroline Murray

Caroline Murray — Sun, 12 Jun 2016 21:04:05 +0000

I agree with Stephen about Cobbett as an exemplar for a tv series about eighteenth-century labouring life, along the lines of the Tudor, Victorian, etc. Farm programmes: the Victorian one, for example, used Henry Stephens’ ‘The Book of the Farm’ as its textbook. http://bit.ly/1PV1XLl

By: pauline taylor

pauline taylor — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 17:54:37 +0000

We regularly attend trader’s group meetings in our street in town, and these are held in cafes and restaurants where we are always offered a choice of coffee or tea, and almost everyone chooses tea, including me. I agree with the previous comment re tea and toast, there is nothing to beat it. I drink coffee but if it became unavailable or was banned tomorrow it wouldn’t bother me in the least, unlike a lot of friends who seem to be completely addicted!!

I have a beautiful black japanned tea caddy with two lined compartments and a lock, I often wish that it could tell me its life story perhaps if it could it would be able to paint a picture somewhat like the one shown here of a family drinking their tea together, maybe even in a lovely street in Spitalfields!!

By: Kate Hayes

Kate Hayes — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 12:00:07 +0000

Just a quibble on a wonderful piece: A banyan is the robe the man is wearing in the first painting.
— a confirmed tea lover

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 11:07:52 +0000

As a confirmed tea drinker, from a family of tea drinkers going back many generations, I salute the finest refreshment known to man with this excerpt from the Kinks’ wonderful hymn to the Camelia Sinensis.

If you feel a bit under the weather,
If you feel a little bit peeved,
Take granny’s stand-by potion
For any old cough or wheeze.
It’s a cure for hepatitis, it’s a cure for chronic insomnia,
It’s a cure for tonsillitis and for water on the knee.

Whatever the situation, whatever the race or creed,
Tea knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree
It knows no motivations, no sect or organisation,
It knows no one religion,
Nor political belief.

“Have a cuppa tea”
from the album Muswell Hillbillies
Words by Ray Davies

By: Stephen Barker

Stephen Barker — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 10:17:58 +0000

What can be better than tea and toast. An interesting article. Thanks to Caroline for the link. For those not in favour of tea drinking I recommend you read William Cobbets ‘Cottage Economy’ Chapter 1, sections 23 & 24. Tea is denounced as a waste of time and money and bad for the health of the labouring class. He calculated in 1822 a years tea drinking, including milk, sugar, tea pot and cups, cost of lighting fires and time lost to work as being £11 7s 6d. He compares tea unfavourably to home brewed beer which he argues is more nutritious and more economical. It is a good read, Cobbett does not pull his punches.

As an idle thought I think the book would be an excellent basis for a ‘reality’ tv programme.

By: Caroline Murray

Caroline Murray — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 09:49:21 +0000

I think the little crisp things are sweet wafers which were consumed with the tea? This is a terrific article, and I hope to get to the lecture. Tea, by the way, was not universally regarded as a Good Thing – you may be interested in this: http://bit.ly/1OxtqvP

By: Valerie-Jael

Valerie-Jael — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 09:38:08 +0000

@ Gabrielle – thanks for the support – I have had a bad conscience all my life because I never liked tea! Off now for a cup of cofeee…. Valerie

By: gabrielle

gabrielle — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 08:58:30 +0000

Fascinating! We’re strange beings we are carried away by a small leaf, soaked in water. As habit forming as it’s said to be, I never found it so. In fact, like Valerie, I always preferred coffee and, coincidentally, had a cup of tea yesterday evening..my first in over a month. It was good though! Got to hand it to the enterprising traders who created a demand for it…. £10k for a pound of tea! Wonder what they paid the growers? Then, of course, they took it to India..more £££ s. The magnificent buildings and houses around the Thames reflect that wealth and interesting to see, after a period of abandonment and neglect, they’re once again in the hands of the seriously wealthy!
Yes, Caroline, those crisp like things look interesting. I wondered if they were just thinly sliced bread..but hope for something more exotic!