THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

meats which are presented to each person, and which must be held on the
lap. Frenchmen are greatly embarrassed when, in one hand they hold the
cup and saucer, and with the other they must take slices of bread and
butter and smoke-cured meats cut in very thin slices. When everything is
ready for serving, the ladies pull out their handkerchiefs, and spread them
out on their laps. When the cup is sent back, care is taken to place the
spoon in such a manner that it indicates whether you wish another cup, or
whether you have had enough. A Frenchman who did not speak any
English, and not being acquainted with this sign language, and very
distressed to see the sixteenth cup arrive, hit upon the idea after having
emptied it, of keeping it in his pocket until they had finished serving. 2
Bayard’s description illustrates the growth of ritualized tea drinking in the
Atlantic world in the eighteenth century. Of the three stimulant beverages introduced
into Europe in the seventeenth century — tea, coffee, and chocolate — tea quickly
outpaced the other two in consumption. 3 Tea benefitted from its intrinsic qualities; it was
easily enhanced with sugar, cream, or milk and was tolerable even when served weak.
Tea was also more economical than coffee or chocolate. Aided by government protection
and the monopoly held by the East India Company, supplies of tea increased and prices
declined throughout the eighteenth century. 4 Tea drinking influenced the consumption of
sugar, which rose four hundred percent during this period, and fueled the demand for
2 Bayard, Travels of a Frenchman, 47.
3 Beth Carver Wees, English, Irish, and Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art
Institute (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1997), 268. According to Wees, between 1725 and 1800 annual
tea imports into Britain increased from 250,000 pounds to 24 million pounds. See also Agnes Reppelier,
To Think of Tea! (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 1932), 3-4; Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, Consuming
Subjects: Women, Shopping, and Business in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1997), 19-69.
4 Rodris Roth, Tea Drinking in Eighteenth Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage, Bulletin
225, Paper 14, Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution, 1961), 66; Wees, English, Irish, and Scottish Silver, 267; Sidney Mintz, Sweetness
and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 112-113.
3