by Emily Mcbride

Created on: January 24, 2009

Most things British are contradictory to one extent or another, so it isn't particularly surprising to find that English Breakfast tea is in fact Scottish. It was invented in Edinburgh, admittedly the most English of Scottish cities, but quickly became popular South of the border. It is in fact a blend of different black teas, usually involving Assam or Ceylon, and sometimes Kenyan teas as well. It is black in colour and pairs well with milk and sugar. The British generally tend to take at least milk in their tea, and optionally sugar or honey.

Tea was already popular in England when breakfast tea made its entrance into the market in 1843, but was generally, at least in polite society, consumed in the afternoon. The British meal at the time generally consisted of a large breakfast and a smaller supper much later in the day; afternoon tea, with its accompanying snacks, bridged the gap between the two. The British had already developed a strong taste for tea in the afternoon, and readily accepted a morning variety. It was also a time when orientalism was on the rise, and the Chinese and Indian origins of tea added greatly to its popularity.

The origin of milk in tea is an interesting side note to the history of tea in England itself, and at least two versions exist, both concerned primarily with money. In one version, tea was expensive and milk was cheap; thus the rich could afford to drink their tea without milk, and progressively more milk was added at least rung down on the social ladder. Certainly at some point, milk became fairly standard in tea, and here the great debate, tea first or milk first, began. Again it often was at bottom a contest of wealth. Cheap ceramic cups at the time could not withstand the heat of undiluted tea without cracking, and milk was added first to cool them sufficiently. The wealthy could afford bone china, and added the milk afterwards (and perhaps as an afterthought, since they had not added it at all previously).

While afternoon tea is perhaps the epitome of genteel Britain, tea played an important role among the lower classes as well, and could be said to have partly fuelled the British Empire, for a time. The Industrial Revolution had resulted in huge internal migrations to the cities in search of factory work, where the hours were long, the work hard, and the conditions often gruesome. The caffeine in tea kept workers awake, and the sugar they added often replaced what should have been a meal. No wonder the English are considered a nation of people with bad teeth The sugar itself came from colonies in the new world, which in turn demonstrated appalling working conditions, in this case for black slaves imported from Africa.

From the traditional afternoon tea to the Victorian era breakfast variety, and from the delicate china cups of a country estate to the factory worker chugging back a sugary cup before his shift started, tea has been an integral and complex part of British life for several centuries.

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