You may think of tea as a quintessential English beverage, but it did not arrive in Britain
until the late 17th century. e Portuguese, who had brisk trading operations in the Far
East, had been enjoying tea for some time. When England's King Charles II remarried
Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, tea was part of her dowry. Soon it became the
drink of royalty, and courtiers then followed suit.
Capitalising on the trend, the East India Company began importing tea and the market
exploded. Even coff ee shop owners began serving it, and smugglers sold it on the black
market. By 1750, tea was also the preferred drink of the lower classes, over ale and gin.
For aristocrats, tea was truly elevated as a symbol of privilege and leisure in the mid-1840s
when one of Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting, the Duchess of Bedford, invented the
afternoon tea. She would order an afternoon snack and a pot of tea to be brought to her
room to revive herself during the long interval between lunch and dinner. Soon, she began
inviting friends to her chambers to share this treat, and so-called "at home" tea was born.
Others began hosting "at homes" so that on almost any day of the week, members of the
gentry would have an occasion to socialise. And they did not limit their afternoon teas to "at
home". In warm weather, the elite would fl ock to outdoor tea gardens or host garden parties
at which afternoon tea was followed by the "tea dance".
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