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Tea Drinking in 18th-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage: United States National Museum Bulletin 225, Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology Paper 14, pages 61-91, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1961Roth, Rodris

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Tea Drinking in 18th-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage: United States National Museum Bulletin 225, Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology Paper 14, pages 61-91, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1961

Name: Tea Drinking in 18th-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage: United States National Museum Bulletin 225, Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology Paper 14, pages 61-91, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1961
Author: Roth, Rodris

Roth, Rodris

Tea -- United States; United States -- Social life and customs -- 18th century

After dinner we had a Grand & agreeable Walk in & through the
    Gardens--There is great plenty of Strawberries, some Cherries,
    Goose berries &c.--Drank Coffee at four, they are now too
    patriotic to use tea.

And indeed they were patriotic, for by September the taste of tea
almost had been forgotten at Nomini Hall, as Fithian vividly recounted
in his journal:[14]

    Something in our palace this Evening, very merry happened--Mrs.
    _Carter_ made a dish of Tea. At Coffee, she sent me a dish--&
    the Colonel both ignorant--He smelt, sipt--look'd--At last with
    great gravity he asks what's this?--Do you ask Sir--Poh!--And
    out he throws it splash a sacrifice to Vulcan.

[Illustration: Figure 3.--_A Society of Patriotic Ladies_ at Edenton in
North Carolina pledging to drink no more tea, 1775, an engraving
published by R. Sayer and J. Bennet, London. In Print and Photograph
Division, Library of Congress. (_Photo courtesy of Library of
Congress._)]

Other colonists, in their own way, also showed their distaste for tea
(see fig. 3). Shortly before the outbreak of the American Revolution
there appeared in several newspapers an expression of renouncement in
rhyme, "A Lady's Adieu to Her Tea-Table"[15] (below), which provides a
picture of contemporary teatime etiquette and equipage.


                  _A Lady's Adieu to Her Tea-Table_

          _FAREWELL the Tea-board with your gaudy attire,
          Ye cups and ye saucers that I did admire;
          To my cream pot and tongs I now bid adieu;
          That pleasure's all fled that I once found in you.
          Farewell pretty chest that so lately did shine,
          With hyson and congo and best double fine;
          Many a sweet moment by you I have sat,
          Hearing girls and old maids to tattle and chat;
          And the spruce coxcomb laugh at nothing at all,
          Only some silly work that might happen to fall.
          No more shall my teapot so generous be
          In filling the cups with this pernicious tea,
          For I'll fill it with water and drink out the same,
          Before I'll lose LIBERTY that dearest name,
          Because I am taught (and believe it is fact)
          That our ruin is aimed at in the late act,
          Of imposing a duty on all foreign Teas,
          Which detestable stuff we can quit when we please.
          LIBERTY'S The Goddess that I do adore,
          And I'll maintain her right until my last hour,
          Before she shall part I will die in the cause,
          For I'll never be govern'd by tyranny's laws._

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Tea Drinking in 18th-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage: United States National Museum Bulletin 225, Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology Paper 14, pages 61-91, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1961

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