English tea time
Food historians generally credit Anna, the Duchess of Bedford, for popularizing afternoon tea in the 1830s. Primary sources reveal this English meal was a byproduct of social economy. As the Industrial Revolution flipped the main meal of the day from noonish to evening, the opportunity for a light, late afternoon repast presented itself. For the English, Afternoon Tea was the perfect answer. Victorian-era teas assumed many forms, according to purpose. Ranging from informal feminine gatherings to elaborate ornate events attended by hundreds, this versatile meal played a unique role in British life, enjoyed throughout the Empire. Our research indicates classic English "tea" was not popular in the USA until the last quarter of the 19th century. Americans embraced coffee as a way forge national beverage identity seperate from England.

Afternoon tea
"It is impossible to pinpoint exactly when tea was first served as an afternoon event that took place between midday luncheon and evening dinner. Routines varied greatly between city and country, between classes, and depending on each individual day's activities. But there is no doubt that some time in the late 1830s and early 1840s, the taking o tea in the afternoon developed into a new social event. Jane Austen hits at is as early as 1804 in an unfinished novel about a family called the Watsons...The accepted tea legend always attributes the 'invention' of afternoon tea to Anna Maria, wife of the 7th Duke of Bedford, who wrote to her brother-in-law in a letter sent from Windsor Castle in 1841: 'I forgot to name my old friend Prince Esterhazy who drank tea with me the other evening at 5 o'clock...The Duchess is said to have experienced 'a sinking feeling' in the middle of the afternoon, because of the long gap between luncheon and dinner and so asked her maid to bring her all the necessary tea things and something to eat--probably traditional bread and butter--to her private room in order that she might stave off her hunger pangs...Georgiana Sitwell wrote quite categorically of the 1830s, 'There was no gathering for five o'clock afternoon tea in those days, but most ladies to an hour's rest in their rooms before the six or seven o'clock dinner...It was not till about 1849 or 50...that five o'clock tea in the drawing room was made an institution, and then only in a few fashionable houses where the dinner hour was as late as half past seven or eight o'clock.'...Manners of Modern Society, written in 1872, described the way in which afternoon tea had gradually become an established event. 'Little Teas,' it explained, 'take place in the afternoon' and were so-called because of the small amount of food served and the neatness and elegance of the meal. They were also known as 'Low Teas,' because guests were seated in low armchairs with low side-tables on which to place their cups and saucers, 'Handed Teas,' since the hostess handed round the cups, and 'Kettledrums,' presumably because the kettle was a vital piece of equipment involved in the ceremony. The book continued, 'Now that dinners are so late, and that 'teas proper'...are postponed in consequence to such an unnatural hour as ten p.m.; the want is felt of the old-fashioned meal at five, and so it has been reinstated, though not quite in the same form as before. Diaries, journals and memoirs from the second half of the century are full of tea...By the end of the century, afternoon tea had crossed all class barriers...'the table was laid...there were the best things with a fat pink rose on the side of each cup; hearts of lettuce, thin bread and butter, and the crisp little cakes that had been baked in readiness that morning.".'" --- A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [The National Trust:London] 2001 (p. 102-105) "The growth of business and businesslike habits, steadily justifying the ladies and pressing the dinner-hour farther round the clock, was not well received by the stomach. English internal engines, designed for refueling every four and a half hours, begin to labor when asked to run for six hours at a stretch. Once again wives and mothers took the situation in hand and found the remedy. They invented Afternoon Tea...The English, or at least the London, public was first offered tea in 1657, being advised to drink it for medicinal reasons rather than for pleasure...In private, as well as in the public and popular Tea Gardens, millions of people had drunk tea without inventing afternoon tea. The credit for this innovation has been given to a Duchess of Bedford, and it is true that she seems to have discerned new possibilities in the tea parties held...after dinner; she gave her tea parties earlier and less formally, al fresco. But as an institution in the home, as an occasion not for dressing up and shining but rather for being dull and comfortable by one's own fire, afternoon tea had to wait until...successive Chancellors made it practicable and the domestic time-table made it desirable. It was, at first, an affair of the nursery rather than the boudoir, the good mothers' escape from the dilemma of either sending the children straight to be on top of one of Mrs. Beeton’s family dinners, or keeping them up past their proper bedtime. Afternoon tea provided a meal suitable for children and hour and a half for its digestion."
...Moveable Feasts, Arnold Palmer [Oxford University Press:London] 1952 (p. 97-101)

Tea parties
"The 1879 edition of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household ManagementGood Form explained the organization of a nineteenth-century 'little tea': 'A pretty little afternoon tea service is place upon a small table and there are plates of rolled bread-and-butter, as well as biscuits and cake...'"
--- A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [The National Trust:London] 2001 (p. 107-108)

High tea
British 'High Tea" was not a fancier version of afternoon tea, but a more substantial meal served later in the day, for both sexes. The name was inspired by the actual height of the tables used to serve this meal and a "higher" hour on the clock.

"Traditionally, the upper classes served a "low" or "afternoon" tea around 4:00 pm just before the fashionable promenade in Hyde Park, at which one might find small, crust less sandwiches, biscuits, and cake. Middle and lower classes had a "high" tea later in the day, at 5:00 or 6:00. It is a more substantial meal, essentially its dinner. A typical menu at high tea would consist of roast pork, stand pie, salmon and salad, trifle, jellies, lemon-cheese tarts, sponge cake, walnut cake, chocolate roll, pound cake, white and brown bread, currant teacake, curd tart and cheeses. The names derive from the height of the tables on which the meals are served. Low tea was served not at a dinner table but on tables, which in the United States would be called "coffee tables," in the withdrawing room. High tea was served on the dinner table."---SOURCE: http://www.georgianindex.net/Tea/ttable.html [NOTE: this web site includes types of tea available, hostesses' duties, & photos of period china/utensils.] In Mrs. Beeton's 1892 edition of her Book of Household Management, she talks not only of 'afternoon tea' but also of 'high tea': 'in some old-fashioned places, whose inhabitants have not moved with the times...a quiet tea where people are invited to partake of such nice things as hot buttered toast, tea cakes, new-laid eggs, and home-fade preserves and cake'. We do not know exactly when the first high tea was eaten. For the working and lower middle classes, it progressed naturally from the fact that tea was served as a standard beverage at mealtimes throughout the day 'Dinner' still book place in the middle of the day. For men there was meat and vegetables, fish, or bread and cheese, depending upon the family budget and the region. In the poorest homes, the women and children made do with tea...For most poor families, however, there was rarely time for tea in the middle of the afternoon. But a large pot of strong tea sitting in the middle of the meal table amidst cold meats, pies, fried bacon and potatoes, cheese, home-baked bread or oatmeal cakes was a welcome sight at 5.30 or 6pm at the end of the working day. A 'high tea' of filling, hearty foods, also known as 'meat tea' or 'great tea' was exactly what mine and factory workers needed as soon as they arrived home hungry and thirsty from a 10-hour shift. Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford gives us all the details of a typical working-class evening tea: 'Here then were the three chief ingredients of the one hot meal a day, bacon from the flitch, vegetables from the garden, and flour for a roly-poly. This meal, called 'tea,' was taken in the evening, when the men were home from the fields and the children from school, for neither could get home at midday. The meal varied from house to house and for tea at a nearby farm, 'there were fried ham and eggs, cakes and scones and stewed plums and cream, jam and jelly and junket.'...Even for the very poor, tea with bread provided the evening's nourishment...High tea was not exclusively a working-class meal. It was adopted by all social groups and adapted to their needs. The 1879 edition of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management explains 'There is Tea and Tea, the substantial family repast in the house of the early dinner, and the afternoon cosy, chatty affairs that late dinners have instituted. The family tea-meal is very like that of breakfast, only that more cakes and knicknackery in the way of sweet eatables are provided. A 'High Tea' is where meat takes a prominent part, and signifies really what it is, a tea-dinner...And there is the mere cup of tea that the lady or ladies of the house take after their afternoon drive as a kind of reviver before dressing for dinner. The afternoon tea signifies little more than tea and bread-and-butter, and a few elegant trifles in the way of cake and fruit. The meal is simply to enable a few friends to meet and talk comfortably and quietly...'...Families who employed servants very often took high tea on a Sunday in order to allow the maids and butler time to go to church and not worry about cooking an evening meal for the family. Nevertheless, there would be a grand array of sweet and savoury dishes to prepare. For high tea in a large country house, Manners of Modern Society recommended 'ripe red strawberries and jugs of rich cream...cakes of various kinds--plum, rice and sponge...hot muffins, crumpets, toast, tea-cakes...The sideboard is the receptacle of the weightier matters, such as cold salmon, pigeon and veal and ham pies, boiled and roast fowls, tongues, ham, veal cake, and should it be a very 'hungry tea,' roast beef and lamb be may be there for the gentlemen of the party.'"
--- A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [The National Trust:London] 2001(p. 110-112)

What to serve?
Tea cakes daintily arranged on ornate multi-tiered silver trays crafted expressly for this sole purpose.

"In Victorian country houses, preparing recipes for tea was carried out not in the kitchens, but in the stillroom, where the maid was under direct supervision of the housekeeper. The stillroom in previous centuries had been the province of the mistress of the house, where she prepared sweetmeats, confectionery and cordials for the banqueting or dessert course--providing yet another link between luxury food items and tea. Afternoon teas, as Marie Bayard wrote in 1884 in Hints on Etiquette, was 'not supposed to be a substantial meal, merely light refreshment'. The food and drink were then (and still are today) less important than the event itself. 'Cakes...thin bread and butter, and hot buttered scones, muffins, or toast is all the accompaniments strictly necessary.'...Neat, crustless sandwiches were a particularly useful tea-time food, allowing hostesses the possibility of introducing more exciting flavours. More important, perhaps, they could be eaten without risk of soiling gloves and other articles of clothing. Mrs. Beeton told readers in 1892 that sandwiches 'intended for afternoon tea are dainty trifles, pleasing to the eye and palate, but too flimsy to allay hunger where it exists.'"
--- A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [The National Trust:London] 2001 (p. 117)
[NOTE: this book contains 19th century recipes for: Milk Dough for Children's Cakes, Tea Cakes, Bread for Tea, Seville Orange Biscuits, Ginger Cake, Gingerbread, Buttered Eggs, Soda Cake, Macaroons, Spunge Cake and Cheap Bread.]

Suggeste home tea menus
Much of what we know about the earliest tea menus were not recorded not in cookbooks, but literature. Jane Austen and her contemporaries chronicled the rise this meal with great care and detail.

[1830s]
Kim Wilson's Tea with Jane Austen offers tea notes, menu suggestions and modernized recipes gleaned from this famous author's books.

[1861]
"2194. As soon as the drawing-room bell rings for tea, the footman enters with the tray, which has been previously prepared; hands the tray round to the company, with cream and sugar, the tea and coffee being generally poured out, while another attendant hands cakes, toast, or biscuits. If it is an ordinary family party, where this social meal is prepared by the mistress, he carries the urn or kettle, as the case may be; hands round the toast, or such other eatable as may be required, removing the whole in the same manner when tea is over."
---"Domestic Servants," Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

[1910s]
"The ritual of English teatime was perfected by Queen Mary, for whom it was a treasured time of day...Sandwiches, cakes and biscuits were invitingly set out on gleaming silver dishes. The teapot, hot water jug, cream jug and sugar bowl were the same antique silver service that had been the favourite of Queen Victoria."
---Dinner at Buckingham Palace, Paul Fishman and Fiorella Busoni editors [Metro Publishing:London] 2003 (p. 20)
[NOTE: This book offers tea-time recipes for rich fruit cake, ginger cake, sandwiches jambon et langue (ham and tongue), mincemeat puffs, Queen's cakes, scones, lemon curd sponge, currant buns, sables a la poche, pont neuf, eclairs au cafe, small chocolate cakes, Scotch bread, Sandringham Christmas cake, Albert biscuits and Victoria biscuits.]

[1936]
Suggested home tea menus for a week from: Cookery Illustrated and Household Managment, Elizabeth Craig [Odshams Press:London]

• "Afternoon Tea: Brown Bread and Butter, Potted Salmon Sandwiches, Picklets Rock Cakes, Scotch Jam Sandwich.
• High Tea: Fried Fillets of Haddock, White Bread and Butter, Toast, Strawberry Jam, Eccles Cakes, Gingerbread. Note.--Serve fish with Piquante or Tomato sauce, and a green salad, if liked."---(p. 619)
• "Afternoon Tea: Hot Buttered Toast, Mustard and Cress Sandwiches, French Biscuits, Maids of Honour, Dundee Cake. Note--If liked, spread hot toast with butter creamed with caster sugar and ground cinnamon to taste. "Afternoon Tea: Milk Bread and Butter, Whitstable Sandwiches, Rice Buns, Ginger Snaps, Caramel Layer Cake.
• High Tea: Grilled Kidneys, White Bread and Butter, Ballater Scones, Damson Cheese, American Doughnuts, Chocolate Nougat Cake. Note.--Serve scones buttered hot, or split, buttered and spread with greengage jam."---(p. 622)
• "Afternoon Tea: Kentish Oatcakes, White Bread and Butter, Blackberry Jelly, Cornish Splits, Ginger Biscuits, Chocolate Cream Cake.
• High Tea: Fried Fresh Herrings, Toast and Watercress, Carievale Nut Bread and Butter, Balmoral Tartlets, Chelsea Buns, Raisin Slab Cake. Note.--If preferred, substitute potted meat sandwiches and watercress for the herring."---(p. 623)
• "Afternoon Tea: Bloater Cream Sandwiches, White Bread and Butter, Lemon Cheese, Rice Biscuits, Meringues, Canadian Layer Cake.
• High Tea: Fried Fish Cakes, Celery or Watercress, Toasted Brown Bread, White Bread and Butter, Potted Beef or Game, Quince Marmalade, Lemon Cheese Cake, Coffee Cake."--- (p. 625)
• "Afternoon Tea. Egg and Anchovy Sandwiches, Northumberland Griddle Cakes, Ayrshire Shortbread, Bath Buns, Marshmallow Layer Cake.
• High Tea: Boiled Salmon, Mayonnaise Sauce, Cucumber Sandwiches, Nut and Raisin Bread, Bread and Butter, Plum Jam, Ayrshire Shortbread, Spiced Raisin Cake."---(p. 626)
• "Afternoon Tea: Buttered Irish Barmbrack, Abernathy Biscuits, Windsor Cake, Fudge Layer Cake. Note.--If a savoury touch is wanted, serve toast or white bread and butter with Potted Cheese and spring onions.
• High Tea: Galantine of Veal, Lettuce and Tomato Salad, White Bread and Butter, Brown Bread and Butter, Black Currant Jam, Sponge Sandwich with Whipped Fruit Filling, Scotch Lawn Tennis Cake."---(p. 628)

Jane Grigson's English Food offers "Teatime" chapter with traditional, modernized recipes.

American tea

We Americans are constantly redefining & reinventing national image. Tea is a prickly subject.

"Emigrants from Britain, Holland and Portugal took their customs and equipage with them when they set sail across the Atlantic. When the English captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch and renamed it New York in 1674, tea was already well established as an everyday beverage for the wealthier members of the new society. The city opened its own pleasure gardens and coffee houses like those in England, and with similar names. In 1682, William Penn founded the Quaker city of Philadelphia, advocating tea as the preferred drink because it filled 'the cups that cheer but not inebriate'. By the 1690s apothecaries in Boston were advertising 'Green and Ordinary teas'. Whenever they went out to tea, ladies carried little bags that held a small teacup and saucer of the best china, and a spoon. As in England, tea was not just for ladies. In December 1757 George Washington ordered from England six teapots and 12lb of tea...His breakfast normally consisted of two cups of tea...Inventories from the Washington household lists all the equipage necessary for the serving of tea: caddies, boards, tables, cups and saucers, teaspoons, a copper kettles and a silver-plated urn. But the history of tea drinking in the American colonies was not set to follow such a smooth path as in Britain. In 1767 Charles Townsend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pused an Act through Parliament that allowed the government to raise revenue by taxing tea and other goods being purchased and imported to America for the purpose of maintaining an army and government there. The only way for the Americans to buy tea was through the English East India Company...Parliament then added insult to injury by introducing much stricter law enforcement against smuggling... This monopoly outraged the colonial tea merchants and shippers who quickly realized they would be ruined...In New York and Philadelphia, the [tea] ships were forced back...In Boston, it provoked the famous Tea Party...The young ladies of Boston signed a pledge, 'We the daughters of those patriots who have, and do now appear for the public intrest, and in that principally regard their posterity, as do with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of foreign tea, in hope to frustrate a plan that tends to deprive a whole community of all that is valuable to life.' They were joined by others around the country, drinking instead 'Balsamaic hyperion' made from dried raspberry leaves, or infusions of other herbs. The Boston Tea Party did not destroy the American taste for tea, although few retailers in Boston dared to offer it for sale for a number of years. George and Martha Washington continued to serve the best quality tea and in 1796, the artist Benjamin Henry Latrobe sketched the President taking tea on the porch at Mount Vernon. Others followed suit, drinking tea in the same way as the British, as an after-dinner drink. In 1827 a servant in Boston published a book of instructions on how to conduct formal tea-parties. Tea was poured into cups, which were then handed round on trays with jugs of cream, bowls of sugar, and plates of toast, bread and butter, and cakes. When guests had finished their tea, the cups were collected and washed, before refills were offered."
---A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [National Trust Enterprises:London] 2001 (p. 48-51)

"Tea drinking in America had long been associated with the elite. The beverage was imported and thus expensive, both before and after the Boston Tea Party. The tea-drinking custom was also associated with free time during the workday, refined manners, dress-up clothes, delicate food, fine china, and silver tea services and implements. By the mid-nineteenth century, the booming new silver-plating industry, plus the discovery of new silver deposits in Nevada, led to the proliferation of specialized pieces, many of them tea wares such as showy hot-water swing kettles, butter dishes, spoon holders, sugar tongs, cake baskets, and more. Fund-raising tea parties of the nineteenth century, fancy events in which guests wore elaborate historical costumes, had also established an association between upper classes and tea...After the centennial celebration of 1876 Philadelphia, the popularity of tea drinking rose. In the early twentieth century, the very rich continued their love affair with tea, building private tea houses on their estates, in rustic twig cottages, Oriental pagodas with winged roofs, and vine-covered latticework pergolas. The elite fund-raising tradition would live on in some of the public tea rooms and tea houses of the twentieth century...But for most patrons, tea rooms were simply places to relax and have a good time...Afternoon tea was predominately a female affair, but many women were joined by husbands and male friends...Women's exclusion from many public dining rooms in the 1900s and 1910s was undoubtedly a factor in their attraction to female-friendly tea rooms...In the tea room...women were never turned away, at least not because of their gender."
---Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn: A Social History of the Tea Room Craze in America, Jan Whitaker [St. Martin's Press:New York] 2002 (p. 18-21)

[Colonial Virginia]
"Tea as a meal between dinner and supper was by no means universal even among ladies of the upper class. When afternoon tea was served, the beverage was acccompanied by bread and butter, hot buns or crumpets or muffins, and cake."
---Colonial Virginia Cookery: Procedures, Equipment, and Ingredients in Colonial Cooking, Jane Carson [Colonial Williamsburg Foundation:Williamsburg VA] 1985 (p. 8)

[1847]
"Arrangement of Table, and Bills of Fare, for Tea.
Summer. Let a pure white cloth be neatly laid; let the tray be covered with a white napkin; and on it, as for breakfast, the sugar, cream, and slop-basin, containing the spoons and the cups and saucers within them. Let it be placed in the iddle of one side or at one end. Put around the tables as many small plates as ay be wated, with a small knife in front of each, or at its side; at the other end or side, opposite the tray, let the dish of ripe or stewed fruit be set, with a large spoon and a pile of small saucers in front or at the side of it. On either side, at some little distance from it, let there be plates, with bread sliced, about the eighth of an inch in thickness; or let one dish be of hot wigs, or rusk, or tea-biscuit. Let a fine mould of butter occupy the centre of the table; let its knife be beside it; and on each side a small plate, the one with cold meat, ham, or tongue, sliced thin, (and a fork to help it;) the other with sliced cheese, or a fresh pot-cheese. A pitcher of ice-water, with small tumblers surrounding it, may occupy one corner, and a basket or plate of cake the other. Or a glass-dish of custard may occupy the place mentioned for the fruit, and it (the fruit) be distributed in small saucers, with fine white sugar heaped on the centre of each, and placed upon each plate: this gives the table a very pretty appearance. Or, the custard baked in small cups, may occupy the places of the saucers of fruit. Smoked beef, chopped thin, or Bologna sausages, sliced, may be served at tea; also, cheese; this may be sliced or grated.
For Winter Tea Table. The same appurtenances, with the addition of forks, are requisite, with perhaps and urn of cofffee, for winter tea-table. Oysters pickled, in the place of cold meat, or stewed in the place of fruit, or instead of the stew, a bit of broiled fish, or ham or fried oysters, with hot tea-biscuits and rusks or wigs, and stewed or preserved fruit, and fancy cakes. Grated cocoanut, with tart preserves, or currant jelly, or cranberry jam, may be served thus: grate the white meat of a cocoanut, and put it in a flat glass dish, then turn a mould of jelly upon the middle of it."
---The American System of Cookery, Mrs. T.J. Crowen [T.J. Crowen:New York] 1847 (p. 401-402) [NOTE: "Wigs" are small rich buns, often spiced.]

[1890]
"High tea...There is no pleasenter way of entertaiing a few friends than to give a 'High Tea;' but, as Mrs. Rorer, the well-known cooking teacher says: 'The hostess should invite but a few friends at a time. It is better to have a tea every week with a few pleasant people than a large array of uncongenial ones.' The refreshments are very simple for such a tea, and within the eans of almost every one. The invitations are oftentimes simply visiting cards with the date and words, 'high Tea' written below; while some are engraved porposely, and still others are informal notes. If a friend or friends assist in entertaining, cards for them should be inclosed. Invitation should be sent out at least three or four days in advance, but many successful and pleasant teas have been impromptu, and the invitations sent out the day before. Street suits or reception toilets are always appropriate and admissible for such entertainments. The decorations are usually of one particular flower of late, with plenty of smilax festooned from the chandeliers above. Roses, either pink, yellow or the rich velvety Jacqueminots are perhaps the prettiest and most effective decorations. Everything else should be in harmony with the flowers used. A pretty idea is to have a single rose or a corsage bouquet for the ladies and a buttonhole one for the gentlemen at each plate.
Menu for a High Tea, No. 1: Fried Oysters, Chicken Salad, Thin Bread ad Butter, Wafers, Macaroons, Tea.
Menu No. 2: Oyster Patties, Cabbage Salad, Chicken Sandwiches, Olives, Salted Almonds, Wafers, Coffee.
Menu No. 3: Chicken Croquettes, Shrimp Salad, Thin Bread and Butter, Aardines, Wafers, Russian Tea.
Menu No. 4: Rolled Sandwiches, Escalloped Oysters, Olives, Veal Croquettes, Coconut Balls, Wafers, Coffee."
---Table Talk, January 1890 (p. 35-36)

"Tennis Tea. Sugared Berries, Cold 'Turkish' Tongue, Tomatoes Stuffed with Cress, Rolls, Sweet Sandwiches, Lemonade, Ie Cream. No. 2: Chilled Raspberries, Crab Croquettes, Cream Sauce, Rolls, Ice Cream, Cake." ---Table Talk, August 1890 (p. 299)
[NOTE: Additional tea dishes (p. 304): Lobster Cutlets, Lobster Newburgh, Deviled Lobster, lobster a la Bordelaise, Lobster Croquettes, Ragout of Lobster; Kromeskies of Crabs, Scalloped Crabs, Crab Croquettes, Caviare Toast, Salmon Toast, Egg Sandwiches, Nut Sandwich, Canapes, Rolled Ham, Jellied Chicken, Peanuts Grilled, Cheese Toast, Cheese Straws, Brandy Cheese Crackers.]

"Bridal Party tea...After the table is covered with a heavy piece of Canton flannel, and over this a perfectly white damask tablecloth, put in the centre a square of either embroidered or plain white linen, or a piece of China silk. The silk, however, may be folded around a bowl of roses, or a large, handsome glass dish of fruit. The linen could be put on perfectly plain. In the centre arrange a glass dish of fruit and appropriate flowers, with silk twisted around the base. On the two sides, have white or glass candlesticks, double ones, if you have the, with perfectly white candles and white shades. These may also stand in the folds of silk. On the other two sides have pretty little glass or silver dishes of salted almonds. Small corsage bouquets, or appropriate white and delicate flowers, may be placed at each plate and, with the exception of glass and water bottles, do not have any other decorations on the table. As this tea is for a bridal party, try, as nearly as possible, to have a perfectly white tea, inn dishes, food and decorations. Menu: Shrimp Cutlets, Cream sauce, Parkerhouse Rolls, Coffee, Chicken a a Creme, French Peas, Tomato Salad, Wafters, Brie, Ice Cream, Angel's Food."
---Table Talk,, September 1890 (p. 347)

[1892]
"Tea.--No. I. Seven o'clock.--Thin bread and butter.--Strawberry short-cake.--Sliced tongue.--tea...
Tea.--No. II. Seven o'clock.--Light biscuit.--Buttered toast.--Lobster salad.--Crisp crackers.--Tea.--Coffee...
Tea.--No. III. Sevenn o'clock.--Dipped toast.--Popovers.--Baked apples.--Broiled smoked salmon.--tea....
Tea.--No. IV. Seven o'clock.--Huckleberry-cake.--Bread and butter.--Scorched fish.--tea."
---Just how: A Key to the Cook-Books, Mrs. A.D.T. Whitey, 11th edition [Houghton, Mifflin and Company:Boston] 1892 (p. 302-306)

[1905]
"The term 'Afternoon Tea,' as it is used in this country refers more especially to the social aspect of tea-drinking rather than the 'Five o'Clock Tea' of the domestic circle. The custom of serving tea between the luncheon and dinner hours is an imported one, coming to America from England, where, among both high and low, rich and poor, the afternoon cup of tea is almost an indispensible part of the domestic routine. In America the six o'clock dinner prevails very generally, and the 'Five-o'Clock Tea' custom has gained comparatively little foothold; it has been adopted by the leisure classes, however, and is popular with the college girl, the bachelor maid, the artist, and the so-called Bohemian circle...The evolution of the simple five-o'clock refreshment into the elaborate entertainment known as 'Tea' has been gradual. Originally the purpose of the 'Afternoon Tea' was practical rather than social. In the country homes of England, during the sporting seasons, a 'bite and sup' were offered to the tired sportsman upon his return from field or wood, in order that he might not perish of starvation before the dinner hour--usually eight o’clock. In America the average citizen has no real need of refreshment between his luncheon and dinner, but the afternoon cup of tea found favor, nevertheless, and has gained rapidly in popularity. A great many hostesses, with an eye to economy...make the formal tea their principal mode of entertaining... Then only necessary accompaniment in the way of solid refreshment is bread and butter,--the bread cut very thin, --dainty wafers, or delicate cakes of some kind... Variation on a more elaborate scale is the weekly 'At Home,' which has grown in popularity with many hostesses...The menu may include both tea and coffee or tea and chocolate. There may be one or two kinds of dainty sandwiches and baskets or plates of fancy cakes...A dish of fine bonbons may also be passed. Do not be tempted, however, in preparing a menu for the regular 'At Home' occasion to extend it beyond the limits here prescribed. Bouillon, oysters, salads, ices, fruit, etc., are not expected, and are certainly not in good taste...The really formal 'Tea' is hardly a 'Tea' at all...The "Tea' of this sort...is in reality an afternoon reception... The large number of guests precludes the possibility of pouring and serving tea...and therefore it becomes necessary to lay the table in the dining-room or any other suitable room connected with the drawing-room. The table wears its finest damask; at one end is placed, usually, the tea service, and at the other a chocolate or coffee service. Friends of the hostess preside over these beverages...The menu for a 'Tea' of this kind may include bouillon, two or more kinds of the most delicate sandwiches, cakes, bonbons, such relishes as salted almonds and olives, and tea, coffee, and chocolate. A punch or ice is also permissible...There is still another degree of 'Tea,' but it is so very remotely connected with the idea of tea-drinking that it scarcely deserves a place in this chapter. Properly speaking, it is an afternoon reception on a very elaborate scale...The 'Afternoon Tea' proper is characterized, as has been said before, by an atmosphere of simplicity, informality, and cosiness. A form of 'Tea' in much a favor a few years ago and not yet relegated altogether to the limbo of discarded fads, is the pink, blue, or yellow Tea--or whatever the scheme of decoration may be. There is no reason why the colorscheme 'Tea' should not hold its own so far as the attractiveness of decoration is concerned...One must consider, however, in planning a pink or yellow Tea, not only the table decoration but the harmony of viands in point of color."
---Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes, Christine Terhune Herrick, editor-in-chief, Volume 1 [R.J. Bodmer:New York] 1905 (p. 53-61)

[1906]
"J.P. Morgan, Jr., has introduced the custom of taking afternoon tea at 4 o'clock, or thereabouts, in the office of the banking firm which bears his name. Many members of the big Wall street banking house have taken kindly to the English custom of afternoon tea and wafers, and as a consequence three, and sometimes four, members of the firm adjourn from the outer business office to a private room, where tea is served.---New York Herald."
---"Wall Street Tea Parties," Wall Street Journal April 18, 1906, (p. 2)
[NOTE: Compare with Wall Street lunch 1910.]

[1913]
""The Five o'clock tea table has come to be as much of an institution in the United States as it is in England, where no well-to-do home is without its tea service... the art of making and pouring tea gracefully is one that every woman may acquire and should practicce until perfection is reached, if she wishes to acquit herself as a finished hostess. For the uncermonious social cup, a teaball is indispensable; freshl boiled water a requisite and the use of a 'cucrate,' or basket tray and a nest of tea tables, a great convenience...The bread is cut as thin as possible and then cut again in any desired shape--strips, diamonds and triangles or circes. Three kinds of bread may be used, separately, or in any two combbinedd; beaten biscuits are always in demand. Some hostesses follow the English custom of putting a cluster of their favorite flowers in a tight jar with the butter to be used, thus giving it a delicate flavor suggestive of roses, violets or other flower odor to the sandiwches on their tea table...Any kind of sweet wafers are acceptable with a cup of tea; unsweeted wafers with bouillon, and sandwiches of unlimited fariety with both beverages. Chocolate, cocoa or cacao are also enjoyed at the tea hour by those to who not care for tea...The use of lemon in tea is more than a fad; it is reasonable, for the citric acid of the fruit offsets the tannic acid of the tea. All lovers of lemon in tea like this combination: Add to each cup of tea a teaspoon of orange marmalade. Stir it in well; the result is delicious. A slice of pineapple with a bit of lemon is also favored, whille a whole clove dropped ito a cup just before the tea is poured is popular ad tasty...Another favored combinatio is maraschio cherry and rock candy instead of sugar...orange Pekoe and English Breakfast are generally used for afternooon tea...A new wrinkle is to put the tea into tiny cheesecloth bags which hae a strong thread run through the top to be drawn after the tea is put in. This thread sould be long enough to reach the top of the teapot, and can be used to remove the tea when it has infused long enough." (p. 647-648)
"An Afternoon Tea ....Fruit Punch, Cheese and Nut Sandwiches, Assorted Cakes (inncluding the homemade variety baked in individual molds, and iced to suit table color schemes), Frappe, Candies.
"Studio Tea. Color Scheme; Brown and White. Celery Sticks, Date Sandwiches, Stuffed Dates, Devil's Food, Tea, with Lemon or Conserved Ginger." (p. 630)
---Economay Administration Cook Book Susie Root Rhodes and Grace Porter Hopkins editors [W.B. Conkey Company:Hammnd IN] 1913
[NOTE: Chapter titled "Tea Table Trifles" offers these recipes: Salted Almonds, Gridded baking Powder Biscuit, Bacheor Buttons, Colorado Clover Leaves, Stuffed Dates, 'Dreams,' Fig and Date Cookies, Stuffed Figs, Sugared Flowers, A Japanese Idea (graham crackers with butter & fruit syrup and toasted raisin bread), Lemon Butter 'Mouranian,' Leon Straws, hot Tid-Bit for the Tea Table (cinnamon toast), Men's Favorite (cream cheese, onion, green peppers, celery spread on hot toasted crackers), Sierra Nevada Fruit Cake, Candied Strawberries, Fig and Nut Tarts, Sand tarts, Turkish Delight. (p. 650-653).]

[1915]
"The 'afternoon tea' is the least expensive, least troublesome, and one of the most popular forms of social entertainment. Good tea, good sandwiches, and good company make an ideal social combination...An alcohol-lamp keeps the water boiling, and there are cups and saucers, sugar-bowl and cream-jug, to keep it company. What else shall be served is a matter of individual taste. Sometimes there is fresh toast and a dish of marmalade. The English muffin, toasted, is, unhappily, not a thing that we have much success in making, nor is the nice Scotch scones. But, on the other hand, we excel in little cakes. The small scalloped cakes, either sugared or frosted, baked in little tins, and coming on fresh from the oven, are delightful. On the table may be a dish of bonbons, if one likes. Or, better still, a plate of home-made caramels or fudge. There is something cavalier in offering one's friend crackers bought in boxes, as for the sawdusty little bits of sweetness that are often made to answer the place of a bite of nourishment, they are delusions and snares. Anything in the world except stale sweet crackers....As to the refreshments for larger affairs, there should be the inevitable sandwiches, as delicately made as possible. Also, a fresh, homemade sponge-cake cut into squares and served with tea is a welcome dainty. Any cake served with tea should not be too sweet nor too rich. This beverage calls for a light, nourishing accompaniment, just as coffee and chocolate admit the heavier dainties, like fruit and pound-cake...It is not necessary to stay long at an afternoon tea. During the height of the season in a large city, many of these affairs take place on the same afternoon, the guests going from one to another...The pouring of tea is such a characteristic and pleasant feature of these occasions...An assistant hostess usually presides at each end of the table, one pouring coffee, chocolate, or bouillon, the other tea...A 'curate's assistant' is a convenient adjunct for a small tea. Cake, buns, muffins, and buttered toast may be passed on this little three-storied stand."
---A-B-C of Good Form, Anne Seymour [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1915 (p. 33-45)

[1927]
"For the informal afternoon tea no table is set. The maid brings to the drawing-room, living-room, sun-parlor, or piazza--in fact any place but the dining-room--the tray with the tea-service, which she places on a table previously made ready to receive it...The hostess either makes the tea and pours it or has it made and brought in for her to pour. Of course the former service is more graceful and personal...Cut sugar or rock crystals, a pitcher of cream, a small dish of sliced lemon, and cups and saucers, spoon on saucer, or cups and plates and tea napkins should be in readiness on the tea-tray...Plain bread and butter sandwiches or sandwiches of the simplest kinds--olive, nut, or lettuce--should be served, also small cakes or wafers. Care should be taken not to have anything elaborate...Out of doors, in summer, iced tea, iced chocolate, or punch is more often convenient, as well as more acceptable than hot tea...A tea for which cards are sent out is a formal occasion, really an afternoon reception. Friends of the hostess serve all the refreshments, but maids should be in attendance to remove used cups and plates and to bring fresh ones; also to replenish all dishes of food. The table is laid either with a luncheon cloth or with doilies, and is decorated with flowers and candles...Plates filled with sandwiches, others filled with cakes, and dishes holding candies, with others containing salted nuts, are arranged symmetrically upon the table. Cakes are also disposed upon the frappe table and on serving-table and passed from there...Individual ices are sometimes served, although frappe (or some frozen cream, not too rich) is usually preferred, served in frappe glasses from a frappe bowl by some friend of the hostess...A filled cake basket and dishes of candy may be placed there for convenience in serving."
---Table Service, Lucy G. Allen [Little Brown:Boston] 1927 (p. 73-76)

[1932]
"An Informal and Maidless April Tea. Preparation. The hostess will choose a firm, steady table, not more than 28 inches high, for convenience in pouring, and her seat will be high enough to dominate this table. On a warm April day this may be set on the porch, on a chilly day before the open fire in the living room. Cups, Saucers, Plates, Spoons, Crea ug, Sugar and covered Slop Bowls, dish for Sliced Lemon and one for Spiced Syrup will all be placed at the right, and in such a way that the hostess can conveniently reach them. Saucers and plate may be 'stacked,' the plates with napkins between them. Cups should never be stacked. Spoons may lie in a row, or be fitted 'spoonwise' into one another. Samovar or teapot towards front. Bread, Sandwiches, and Cake may be placed on the farther side of the table, for guests to help themselves. The Tea Wagon, or Cart, or even a small table, may go at the left of the hostess, for extra china. This is better than overloading the table. The Curate, or three-tiered basket or stand, is often used for bread (on its top shelf), sandwiches (on its middle), cake (on its lower compartment), and in this way it may be informally carried round the room and its contents offered to guests. All this preparation should be completed before time for the guests to arrived.
Menu: These are sometimes hot, buttered rolls, but the thin-slcied English bread-and-butter is preferred, provided there is a skilled 'cuttter.'...Assorted Sandwiches. These ay be open or closed, toasted or plain, and the shapes and fillings as novel as possible. Eamples are: Pimiento Butter and Brie Cheese, Lemon Butter and Fig Paste, Horse-radish and Tongue, Sifted Nectarines, Chicken Livers and Tomato, Maple Cream and Chopped Nuts. Cakes: The most convenient are cookies or very small cakes, richly frosted and in paper cases. Beverages, etc. Tea alone is served at such a simple and homey affair, and choice of weak or strong, with or without cream, etc., provides sufficient variety. Nuts and bonbons may or may not be provided.
Procedure Guests at such an infomral affair enter unannounced and with their outdoor things on. If the hostess is seated at the tea table (as she usually is), they will advance at once to be greeted by her, and she will at once inquire their preferences as to sugar, lemon, etc. (the spiced syrup is novel and delicious and goes well with lemon), and fill their cups...Guests help themselves to breads and cakes, and sit while enjoying them. There is no limit to the refilling of cups at tea, and a guest may take her 'empty' to the source of supplies six or more times. Before each refill the hostess will empty the dregs into the covered slop bowl."
---American Cookery, April 1932 (p. 667)

[1933]
"A high tea is really a old-fashined buffet supper or Sunday night supper. What fun they are and what a splendid way to entertain informally. A high tea taakes very little work on the part of the hostess, which is an important consideration for those of us who do not have maids. A dinner party for twelve or eight is apt to leave us worn and weary before the guests arrive. All too often the hostess who has spent all day preparing dinner is more interested in the results of her labors than in her guests. She turns an anxious eye toward the potatoes and only half-hearted ear toward the conversation...If the husbands are present it is well to arrange bridge tables to eat on, as most men loathe to balance a plate or tray on their laps. Such a scheme simplifies things too; for silver, napkins, water, and bread-and-butter plates can all be placed on the card tables. Each table can have its owon cream and sugar and salt and pepper. Then each guest has only to fill his plate in the dining room, take his cup of coffee, and depart for his card table. When it is time for dessert, the only serving required is to remove the dinner plate, substitue the dessert and refill the coffee cups. One of my favorit menus for such an occasion is this: Scalloped Oysters (host serving), Baked Stuffed Tomatoes, Jellied Fruit Salad, Onion Juice Sandwiches, Fruit Meringues, Coffee...Anotehr simple menu that has onl one last-minute dish is this: Jellied Veal, Stuffed Baked Potatoes, Hot Rolls, Crrant Jelly, Fruit-and-Ginger-Ale Salad, Angel Food Cake Stuffed with Strawberry Ice Cream, Coffee."
---"Why Not Have Hight Tea?," Margaret House Irwin, P.D. American Cookery, April 1933 (p. 613-614)

[1935]
"Tea Time, The Peace Time. Before the advent of prohibition turned a temperate people into quite the opposite, there came a time of daily peace, and our busy affairs, for a moment, stood still. At restaurants and in our homes friends gathered together about four o'clock. Of all home functions none is more restful and uplifting than this hour of relaxation...The tea hour makes up to us all that is lacking during the rest of the day and night...Every detail of the tea service should express perfection. The silver should gleam and the linen should be spotless, for these speak of the carefully directed home. Everything should proclaim daintiness, and for this special meal the finest, the prettiest, china should be used. An old-fashioned cake basket lends a certain stately dignity to the tea table and a finely etched or cut glass plate is lovely for sandwiches. The maid must be dressed by tea time, as for dinner, and her immaculate linen must be second only to the immaculate tray cloth or tablecloth and the tiny doilies. Tea has been supplanted more or less by cocktails and, while the cocktail party is often carried out in beautiful detail, its uprorious gayety adds to, rather than takes away from, our nervous restlessness. My attitude is mid-Victorian I know: I still love afternoon tea. So let us find ways and means of adding to the heavenly refreshment of tea for two, or four, or more, at four or five o'clock...if you want cream, it must be rich...But it is the sandwiches, the canapes, the tiny cakes, dainty nothings all fo them but all essential, that give the real joy to the tea table. It is the part of wisdome to avoild the allurements of the tea table if one is on a diet or is attempting to maintian or regain her 'girlish figure', for tea table sandwiches tempt the strongest..."
---Alice Foote MacDougall's Cook BBook, Alice Foote MacDougall [Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Company:Boston] 1935 (p. 219-221)

[1944]
"Affternoon tea for a few. Half an hour to get it, enjoy it, and clear it away if you're busy. An hour or longer, if you're having a few friends in. But the very act of appearing serene, makes you feel that way. And the hot tea with a dainty accompaniment or two, help to turn your mind to happy repose. Setting up the Tray. All you need is a large tea tray on which you can arrange the pot of hot, freshly-made tea...a jug of boiling water or an electric hot kettle, sugar, cream and lemon...the necessary cups, saucers in piles of two each, with the spoons to the left where they can easily be reached...A tea cozy is is a great help in keeping the tea hot. Do not use a tea ball if you want your guests to enjooy a cup of good tea...in summer, you may wish to have a choice of hot or iced tea...Tea accompaniments:...Hot breads: Cinnamon Toast cut in slivers; toasted buttered Scones...toasted English Muffins...cut in wedges; tiny hot Baking Powder Biscuits...split and spread with marmalade, deviled ham, cheese, etc. Crisp crackers spread with peanut butter, or grated cheese, and toasted under broier. Sandwiches: Make them small and dainty--toasted or untoasted...Thi slices of buttered bread are always delicious too. Or top each cracker with a bit of quince jelly and seasoned cream cheese. Cookies: serve one or two choices...Cakes: Serve thinly slice fruit cake, sponge or angel cake, pound cake, Petits Fours, tiny frosted cupcakes...Nuts and Sweets: Mints, salted or sugared nuts, candied peels may be served...When you have invited a large group of friends to afternoon tea it is usually easier to serve it from the dining table, set up with the daintiest linen, silver, china, etc. Let the centeriece be simple but colorful, and use glass or silver candlesticks with white or ivory candles...Ask two friends to pour for you, so that you are left free to welcome and mingle with the guests."
---Good Housekeeping Cook Book, completely revised edition [Farrar & Rinehart:New York] 1944 (p. 865-867)

Liberty tea
Liberty tea was one of several hot beverages brewed with indigenous plants. In this case, loosestrife. Presumably the "recipe" was similar to those for brewing any tea. Not finding actual "recipes" in our early American cookbooks. Notes here:

"An imaginative variety of plants was tried in an effort to find a palatable substitute for China tea...Perhaps the two best-known today, for they were among the most popular during the Revolutionary period, are raspberry leaves the a brew of which was called Hyperion tea, and loosestrife, or Liberty tea."
---Colonial Kitchens, Their Furnishings, and Their Gardens, Frances Phipps [Hawthorn Books:New York] 1972 (p. 106)

"Liberty tea. A loosestrife (here: Lysimachia quadrifolia); also a tea made from this plant. 1837. NH Hist. Soc. Coll. 5.84, Many adopted the use of what was called Liberty tea, as a substitute for the Chinese herb. 'It was made of four-leaved loosestrife.' 1898 Jrl. Amer. Folkl. 11.274 seME, Lysimachia quadrifolio... liberty tea. [Footnotes: used rather than pay the tax on tea.] Torryea 29.150...'liberty-tea.' (we were always told it was so-named because this plant was used to avoid tea-taxes.'"
---Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume III I-O, Frederic G. Cassidy, editor [Belknap Press:Cambridge MA] 1996 (p. 339)

When & where were the teabags introduced?
Our survey of historic newspapers confirms the practice of brewing loose tea in cheese cloth tea existed in the late 19th century. This was done at home; not a packaged commercial product. The generally accepted, oft repeated, story credits Thomas Sullivan, a New York businessman, for “accidentally” inventing tea bags in 1908. The story is fun. But? Like many food legends, it relies on hearsay published long after the "fact." The earliest reference we find "documenting" the Sulllivan story was published in 1945. If you have earlier documented/pring references please let us know. It is interesting to note that the term “tea bag” can also mean a bag of loose tea and a woman’s clutch (small purse) to be used at tea time.

Cheese cloth tea bags
“[Cheesecloth] is used for dish towels, scrub cloths, bread cloths, dusters, strainers, coffee bags, and even tea bags, when the tea ball is out of order, or has not yet put in appearance among the family silver. Little bags, with a thread run into draw up and wind around the next, are a substitute for the tea ball, and a cleanly method of making tea.” ---“Possibilities of Cheese Cloth,” New York Times April 14, 1895 (p. 26)

The Thomas Sullivan story
“The idea is thought to have originated in the United States in 1908 when tea importer Thomas Sullivan sent samples of tea in little silk pouches to clients. His intention was that the leaves should be tipped into teapots in the traditional manner, but the recipients obviously did not understand this and popped the whole bag into the pot, expecting further orders of tea to arrive in the same style. When it didn’t they complained to Sullivan, who recognized the marketing potential and produced the first commercial teabags. By the 1920s, North Americans were brewing most of their tea in bags…”
---A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [The National Trust:London] 2001 (p. 155)
[NOTE: This story is recounted, without reference/footnote in most books on tea, and some recent patents.]

Sullivan story circa 1945:
“The small sacks that our English cousins think a typical creation of a country incapable of appreciating fine tea originated just after the turn of the century. A New York wholesaler named Thomas Sullivan decided he could save money by sending out his samples in hand stitched bags of racket silk instead of in the usual tiny canisters. Much to this astonishment his customers immediately warmed to the idea. A couple of years later cheesecloth was substituted for the relatively expensive silk. This, in turn, was replaced a decade or so after ward by a tasteless gauze. But even these improvements did not cause any appreciable rise in the sales to individual consumers, for the bags are expensive to assemble and housewives hesitated to pay the difference between them and tea in bulk. Finally, the idea of using paper instead of cloth, always more costly, was hit upon, and in 1930 the experiments that had their successful culmination a dozen years later were begun.”
---“Tea and Tea Bags,” Jane Holt, New York Times, October 14, 1945 (p. SM16)

This article states the Sullivan event occurred in 1904:
“Thomas Sullivan was responsible for the origin of the tea bag. In 1904, he put tea leaves into little silk bags as samples of a new blend for his customers. Those customers were a lazy lot and dunked the sample tea, bag and all, into hot water, and reordered. People have been reordering every since…”
---“It’s Just Not My Cup of Tea!,” Jean Lewis Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1963 (p. E7)

Where does Lipton fit in?
“Early growth of the Lipton brand came early…Lipton relied on innovation and sensitivity to changing consumer preferences, and, although Lipton was the first tea sold in packets, it was not the first to be packaged in tea bags. Its founder was…the first to capitalize on the marketability of tea bags. Lipton distributed tea in small, hand-tied bags to hotels and restaurants. Later, he adapted the bags for home use. According to The Lipton Magazine, ‘Lipton continually worked to build a better tea bag, changing form surgical gauze to a specially developed filter paper which imparted none of its own taste to the tea inside.’ In 1952, the Thomas J. Lipton Company began marketing tea in its patented Flo-Thru Tea Bags, four-sided bags designed to improve flavor by exposing more of the tea to the hot water.”
---“Lipton,” Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands, Volume 1: Consumable Products, Janice Jorgensen, editor [St. James Press:Detroit MI] 1994 (p. 339)

"Lipton's Tea, the World' finest. The ideal beverage, delicious and inigorating when served hot or iced--to add enjoyment and zest to any Bridge Party. Lipton's individual Tea Bags--in the new Gold Tin--offer a quick and easy way to serve this refreshing beverage."
---display ad, New York Times, August 10. 1930 (p. SM8)

British tea bags?
Tea drinkers in Britain were art first disdainful of the practice—the bags were apparently not even brewed in a pot by dangled in a cup of warm water at the table, thus producing an undrinkable brew that barely resembled tea. But, as ‘convenience became the catchword of the 1950s and 1960s, more and more British packers and blenders switched to the bag. In 1968, teabags held an almost imperceptible 3 per cent of the market, but that crept up to 10 per cent by 1970, and 12.5 per cent by 1971. Today almost 90 per cent of tea drunk in Britain is brewed with a teabag. For the first 15 to 20 years of its life in Britain, the teabag went through various stages of development. Bags were single chamber or gusseted, stapled or heat-sealed, tagged and enveloped, or plain untagged inside cardboard boxes or packets. In the last 20 years, the driving principle to maintain and increase market share led the major companies to rethink the design and shape of the bag. So we saw the launch of the drawstring teabag…the pyramid teabag…and the round teabag.”
---A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [The National Trust:London] 2001 (p. 155)

Early US patents (from GooglePatents)
[1927] Cooper Tea Packet
[1939] Standard Brands
[1952] Lipton

How much did these early tea bags cost?
[1925]
“Supreme Tea Bags, 25 cents.” [no product count/package weight specified]
---Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1925 (p. A8)
[1926]
“Tao Tea Bags, 25 cents and 45 cents.” [no product count]
---Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1926 (p. A9)
[1937]
“Lipton…8 tea bags/10 cents.”
---New York Times, August 1, 1937 (p. 42)
[1941]
“Lipton’s Tea Bags, 12/41 cents.”
---Chicago Daily Tribune, July 13, 1941 (p. SWA)
[1950]
“Lipton Tea Bags, 21 cents/16 bag package.”
---Chicago Daily Tribune, February 17, 1950 (p. A5)
[1952]
“Lipton’s Green Tea Bags, 20 cents/16 bag package.”
---Chicago Daily Tribune, January 20, 1951 (p. S12)

What to do with your used tea bag? The author of this article had fun answering this one!
“Consider the used tea bag. You lift it, dripping, from the cup. Then, feeling somewhat inadequate, you search for a way to dispose of the thing gracefully. It tends to swing diabolically on its stirring, depositing drops of tea on the surroundings, so you try to keep your hand steady. Perhaps you choose the edge of your cake plate; in that case, you mush quickly shove your slice of cake to the side before it gets soaked by the overflow. Or you may decide to sacrifice your napkin. Most likely, though, you plop the bag onto your saucer. Excess tea will then run into the well of the saucer, ready to drip from the bottom of the cup when you raise it to drink.”
---“Taming the terrible tea bag,” Consumer Reports, March 1969 (p. 110)

Like tea bags, the origin of iced tea predates the legendary story.

About culinary research & about copyright
Research conducted by Lynne Olver, editor The Food Timeline. About this site.