Afternoon Tea: A HistoryAfternoon Tea: A History explores the development of the afternoon tea meal, diving deeper than the popular tale of the Duchess of Bedford s afternoon gatherings to find the meals that inspired those early afternoon teas. Julia Skinner carefully separates the fact and lore around the meal and sets the story of afternoon tea within its historic contexts. Recognizing that a meal s birth and life never happen in a vacuum, the book sets aside the already well-documented conversations surrounding tea etiquette, instead exploring the social contexts that made the meal possible and popular, moving it from one small subset of the population to a widespread and beloved phenomenon, one that nearly died out at the end of the 20th century before experiencing a resurgence in the 21st. Afternoon tea is a meal that came of age during the British Empire s most aggressive expansion, and as such became a meal that was transported to new continents with colonial forces. The book explores how this movement took place and uncovers the different ways tea and colonialism intersect in both the colonial and postcolonial worlds. It also looks at afternoon tea in America, a country that broke from the Empire before the meal was established as a set ritual, but which still has its own complex relationship with the beverage and a continuing fascination with the meal. The book concludes by looking at afternoon tea today, including a handful of interviews that show the range of perspectives about the meal and its place in society, as well as its resurging popularity in the last decade. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 11 | |
Ch02 THE EMPIRE AND THE TEACUP | 45 |
Ch03 AFTERNOON TEA IN THE POSTCOLONIAL WORLD | 87 |
Ch04 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF AFTERNOON TEA IN MODERN GREAT BRITAIN | 121 |
CONCLUSION | 139 |
NOTES | 147 |
| 201 | |
| 215 | |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | 225 |
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accessed January afternoon tea afternoon tea meal afternoon tea service American Australia began Belmond beverage blog Boston Tea Party bread Britain British Empire cakes China Chinese classes clotted cream coffee coffeehouses colonists commodities Company’s consumed Cookery cream cream tea cup of tea dinner dishes Dolin Duchess of Bedford Dutch e-mail interview early East India Company Elevenses England English culture enjoyed etiquette European example Fair Trade Fairtrade finger sandwiches flavor Food and Culture food traditions former colonies global high tea History of Tea household Ibid imported Kataryna Kenya labor later London Malta mealtimes meant menu modern offer Oxford pastries Pettigrew popular postcolonial recipe ritual scones served snack Social History South Africa sugar tastes tea became tea break tea consumption tea drinking tea gatherings tea meal Tea Party tea plantations tea’s tearooms teatime tion tourists twentieth century University Press Victorian Vir Sanghvi women York