A close friend of Queen Victoria, Anna Russell (1783-1857) is credited with the popularization of afternoon tea as a British custom in the early 19th century.1 Predominantly practiced by women, afternoon tea was used as a means to display status and socialize in a small, informal setting. While Russell may have provided the social impetus for this key development in women’s history, the rapid expansion of the British Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries provided the economic preconditions that were necessary for this sweet midday snack. Beginning in the early 17th century, sugar was cultivated on slave plantations in the British West Indies and exported to the British Isles. As these plantations grew in size and productivity, the price of sugar decreased to an accessible price for more English consumers. Sugar was essential to the success of afternoon tea; it was used to preserve fruits into delicious jams and jellies for spreads and added to tea directly to sweeten it. Existing scholarship on this subject focuses primarily on the tea trade’s role in popularizing afternoon tea, relegating sugar to a supplementary role. To address this, this analysis concentrates solely on sugar. This is vital because afternoon tea has played a crucial role in British women’s history since the 18th century and correctly diagnosing its causes can help bolster academic understanding of women’s history. Imperialism allowed for the popularization of afternoon tea because it made sugar more accessible, which was an essential ingredient in fruit preservatives and tea that were staples of the midday refreshment.
As tea drinking increased in popularity in the 18th century it became inseparable from the sugar that sweetened it. Like sugar, tea was another product of the empire that was imported at first from East India Company traders in China and later from India.2 Similar to other exotic commodities, it was initially extremely expensive before decreasing in price after the British Empire expanded its influence over its production. The democratization of tea access coincided with increased access to sugar, and the two imports worked perfectly together. When tea was served, it was expected to be accompanied by sugar that the drinker could add at their discretion. The interdependence of tea and sugar is shown perfectly by the change in per capita consumption before and after the tea craze. In the early 18th century, annual sugar consumption stood at around four pounds a person; by the early 19th century, this increased to 18 pounds per person.3 A sharp 450% increase took place in only a century, which correlates with a massive increase in tea consumption. At around 0.5 annual ounces per person, tea consumption was minuscule at the turn of the 18th century but skyrocketed to around 2 pounds per person by the end of the 18th century.4 The popularity of tea depended on access to sugar, which was made available by Britain’s West Indies colonies. As explained in A Social History of Tea by Jane Pettigrew and Bruce Richardson, “The custom of taking tea with sugar became an integral part of the tea-drinking ritual, and afternoon tea as we know it today would not have been possible without the widespread availability of sugar.”5 Sugar made tea more palatable and desirable to those that were not drawn to the natural taste of tea. Increased access to sugar caused the boom in afternoon tea by improving the taste of tea and attracting more drinkers.
Abolition Teapot, by Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, c. 1760. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
The interconnected relationship between sugar and the popularity of tea can also be shown by the efforts of British abolitionists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As the horrors of slavery in the West Indies sugar plantations gained awareness in Britain, abolitionists searched for the best way to target it and petition for its reform. A common avenue for this was protesting its consumption with tea, as is shown by a teapot created in Josiah Wedgewood’s pottery shop in the 1760s. In bold letters on the side of the teapot, it reads: “Health to the sick, honor to the brave, success to the lover, freedom to the slave.”6 Sugar was so instrumental for tea consumption that abolitionists deliberately chose to target tea as a means of raising awareness for the problems with sugar cultivation. As demonstrated by the correlation between tea and sugar consumption in the previous paragraph, abolitionists knew that if tea drinkers could be convinced to abstain from even a portion of their current sugar consumption, slavery in the West Indies would crumble. The increase in sugar production was so vital to the proliferation of afternoon tea as a social custom that efforts to curtail sugar production specifically targeted tea drinkers.
Fruit preserves aided in popularizing afternoon tea by adding flavor and sweetness to the baked goods that were served with tea. Before the 18th century, jams and jellies existed, but they were expensive because they required boiling fruits in large amounts of expensive sugar.7 This is shown by Lady Cromwell’s recipe book from the mid 17th century, which contained 22 different recipes for preserving fruits.8 The wife of Oliver Cromwell, a prominent British statesman that ruled the country from 1653 to 1658, Lady Cromwell’s expansive preserve recipes are emblematic of her status and exclusive access to sugar.9 This was not a privilege enjoyed by most of Great Britain. Jane Dawson’s cookbook from the late 17th century exemplifies the lack of fruit preservation in the middle and lower-classes compared to the wealthy.10 Dawson’s recipe book is a rare example of a surviving source from a middle-class household, which is proven by “few references to aristocrats or the gentry.”11 Out of 69 pages of culinary recipes, there are only five unique preserve recipes.12 Cromwell’s recipe book did not contain as many fruit preserve recipes because middle-class families like hers could not afford to regularly buy the large amounts of sugar necessary. It was not until after West Indies sugar flooded the British market that jams and jellies could be consistently consumed by families like the Dawsons. Additionally, preservatives in this period were almost entirely limited to domestic fruits that could be harvested and preserved before they went bad. In Britain, these domestically grown fruits included apples, pears, plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.13 In Lady Cromwell’s 22 preserve recipes, there was only one non-domestically grown fruit, oranges, with a preserve recipe.14 Before sugar decreased in price, exotic fruits were too difficult to access and were largely absent from English recipe books.
A Family Being Served Tea, Unknown, c. 1745. Yale Center for British Art. Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).
Increased access to sugar made preserves cheaper for everyone to produce and made foreign fruits more accessible, providing delicious jams and jellies to eat at afternoon tea. As explained by the Dundee Advertiser, “In England the custom of spreading fruit jam upon bread at breakfast or tea is a luxury which has become a necessity, and is found in every household, from the humblest cottage to the most aristocratic mansion.”15 By the early 19th century, sugar production in British colonies was so efficient that even middle and lower-class families could afford to purchase it and incorporate fruit preserves into their diets. The democratization of preserves meant that more people could participate in afternoon tea, contributing to its massive popularity.
Alongside this, the exclusivity of these foreign fruits was reduced with the cheaper cost of preserving them with colonial sugar, as shown by Elizabeth Smith’s recipe book from the late 18th century. At 149 pages, Smith’s recipe book comprehensively lists many common recipes from the late 1700s, well into the era of easier sugar access.16 Out of the nine fruit preserve recipes listed, oranges and lemons stood out as foreign, imported fruits. Demonstrating their novelty, the preserve recipes for these fruits were much longer than other fruits, with both taking up a full page.17 While other fruits carried generations of communal, oral knowledge with them, these foreign fruits needed more specific directions because they were not traditionally preserved. With these preserves, Smith lists a flurry of new recipes using these new, exotic tastes; there are 9 recipes using oranges and 8 using lemons.18 Similar to the preserve recipes, these recipes are all nearly a page long for similar reasons. From syrups to cakes, Smith utilized her access to oranges and lemons to introduce an entirely new genre of sweets into her recipe book, just like much of Britain.
Increased access to sugar allowed for afternoon tea, an important social leisure activity for English women, to develop into a staple of English culture. Fruit preservatives, a popular spread to accompany afternoon tea, were made much more accessible for regular consumption when the supply of sugar increased. Additionally, sugar was added directly to tea to improve its sometimes bitter taste. Scholarly work on the impact of sugar and preserves on British cuisine could be further explored by investigating how sugar affected other aspects of British cuisine such as breakfast and dinner food. Additionally, more attention could be focused on how afternoon tea has evolved since the 19th century. Access to sugar has undergone significant changes in the last several centuries due to the crumbling of European empires and modern methods of cultivation; tracking how this has changed English cuisine and culture would complement this work well.
Works Cited
Bickham, Troy. “Eating the Empire: Intersections of Food, Cookery and Imperialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain*.” Past & Present 198, no. 1 (February 1, 2008): 71–109. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtm054.
Pettigrew, Jane, and Bruce Richardson. A Social History of Tea: Tea’s Influence on Commerce, Culture & Community. 2nd Expanded edition. Benjamin Press, 2013.
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