Where to get a cup of tea in London, 1696 CE?

A very similar tea bowl to one of my own, circa 1700; hard-paste Chinese porcelain made for export to Europe.

With a chill westerly wind blowing the November rain into the faces of almost 600,000 Londoners, a warm respite was always welcome. The men of 1696 CE had every option open to them; the women slightly less so.

Inns offered accommodation and full board, thus serving as the hotels of their day. Taverns were equivalent to our pubs, ale houses acted as social clubs, and coffee houses were the hub of professional commerce. Women could get out of the rain and the street's mud in all these places, except the coffee houses, which were the domain of men only. Coffee houses also served Chinese tea, alcohol, and some offered food; a few even specialised in serving bitter hot chocolate, but none allowed a woman's winter boot to cross the threshold.

The opportunity to serve a potentially huge market was first filled by Twining's Tea House (The Golden Lion) on The Strand in London, 1706 CE. The Golden Lion actively sought female customers, selling the hot, fragrant beverage in small, handleless bowls, along with dry tea by the pound.

By the time Twining's opened their tea shop, which is still in business today, the tea tax Twining paid had been cut from one shilling and five pence a pound to just five pence a pound. However, the supply had not dramatically increased from a decade earlier. The East India Company (EIC) had not yet established regular trading and shipments from China to England.

In the first chapter of A Filigree of Gold, Rebecca Scott is paid four guineas for a pound of the very finest Chinese tea. Ten years later, Twining's, in reality, would have charged a little less, but still about three pounds sterling. In today's money, a pound of tea would cost the same as an Xbox! It is small wonder, then, that Rebecca's tea house customers, seeking a warm drink on a chill, wet November day, are some of London's most wealthy women.

The following is a bonus passage which I edited out of A Filigree of Gold; it is given in full below, describing (a little stiffly) how I saw Rebecca's tea house in my mind's eye. P.B. Phillips. November 2023 - 1st draft –

Rebecca and the tea trade. P.B. Phillips.

The 'Tea House' is now so established in the nation that almost every major city in the Kingdom has at least one. But at the end of 1696, a place specifically for women to meet was then a completely new and exciting concept. Rebecca's was the first tea house in London, in the country, in fact. Men exclusively have coffee houses and gentlemen's clubs to themselves.

The tea house was designed to provide an elegant, safe place where ladies could meet and be seen meeting, whilst enjoying the luxury of drinking tea. It is true that most inns in London are for men and women. The exception being the Southwark inns, which are almost entirely brothels; very few married women, save those diddling, would enter an inn on the south bank.

The tea houses of England are female-dominated and, for the most part, female owned; a public haven for more than half the population. Rebecca was a businesswoman, and she understood her customers' needs, wants, and desires. The building itself was a new villa in a row at the newly rebuilt centre of retail in London, Cheapside. The tea house was the whole ground floor, save the kitchen. The decoration was ornate, the furniture was elegant and strong—this was a working business after all— and there were windows everywhere, letting in natural light.

On the table, the tea-ware was all of the same kind, East India Company integrated infuser teapots, which were new to the market. The richest ladies mostly had silver teapots at home, crafted by top silversmiths such as Pierre Patel and Thomas Langford. The only other people that could afford tea at home, a rich merchant's wife, usually had tin teapots, yet like silver, they lost their heat too quickly and the expensive tea soon became bitter.

Each table in Rebecca's was set with fine Irish linen trimmed with Flemish straight lace. The sugar bowls, hot water cans, cups, and saucers were fine hard-paste blue and white porcelain and set an air of refined but approachable elegance. Rebecca had apprenticed to an apothecary and was thus a member of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, a fine noble guild. Rebecca knew her trade and wanted her customers to have the same experience whether they were a daughter of a Baronet, the wife of a rum merchant, or even a servant girl on the eve of her wedding; luxury environment, great service, excellent tea, and first-rate tableware.

Within a year of opening, Rebecca had oil lamps outside every window that could burn all night, seen by some as an extravagance. Even the rich merchant classes blew out their street-facing lights, usually tallow candles, at midnight, to save money. But everyone lit their homes at dusk; no one wanted to get a two-shilling fine for not lighting their part of the street.

Rebecca looked to set a new standard for every aspect of her life and business; she was determined to show the public the potential power of the tea trade and her growing place in it.

***

I hope you enjoyed that tiny sip from Rebecca's elegant tea bowl.

A new blog each Sunday; Everything else, is just straw and water.

P.B. Phillips - Author of the lightly spiced Historical Novel series, Seeking Solus: Life and Love as the First True Thief Taker.