All over the world, there is a popular pick-me-up as universally enjoyed in boardrooms and legislative assemblies as bustling marketplaces and private homes: a refreshing midafternoon cup of tea, prepared in whatever variant style that local custom prefers, served alongside “a little something” to bridge the gap that looms between lunch and dinner. But how did this civilised break from the workaday world evolve?
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China once had the monopoly on tea production, until tea seeds and seedlings were smuggled out of the country in the 1830s by Scottish botanist Robert Fortune. From that botanical piracy, tea plantations were established in Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), Java, India and latterly in Africa (much of the world’s tea-bag-grade tea is now produced in Kenya, Uganda and Malawi).
A special afternoon tea and tea dance was held at The Peninsula to celebrate the hotel’s 90th anniversary in Hong Kong in 2018. Photo: SCMP/Winson Wong
Today, tea-drinking remains a mainstay of Chinese society, with extensive rituals, connoisseurship and a richly decorative material culture that surrounds every aspect of tea consumption.
From 1757, Canton was the only port in China where foreign trade was permitted, until the cession of Hong Kong, and the opening of five treaty ports, in 1842. Along with tea exports came the porcelain bowls, cups and plates used to serve the drink, as well as “export silver” pots and other utensils, either made in Canton or sourced through it from elsewhere in China.
As with any cultural export, consumer tastes and habits changed over time, and tea drinking, along with the foods served with the beverage, also changed with it. By the late 19th century, in Britain and across the British overseas world from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa, a form of “high tea” had evolved and remained popular for several decades. The substantial late-afternoon meal, generally in place of dinner, typically consisted of sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, scones, pastries and savouries of various kinds, as well as strong cups of tannin-rich black tea, usually diluted with milk and laced with sugar.
The Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong serves up its afternoon tea, an indulgence that has become a worldwide hotel industry staple. Photo: Handout
Various forms of “English-style high tea” soon became worldwide hotel industry staples, and remain so, Hong Kong being no exception to this trend. “High tea” itself is a hospitality industry term, and remains studiously undeployed by those persons who have eaten versions of the meal at home since early childhood, and therefore know the distinct difference between old-fashioned, home-made teatime staples and the more elaborate versions generally produced in hotels.
