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1870-78: The China Tea YearsA brand new tea clipper launches

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1870-78: The China Tea YearsA brand new tea clipper launches

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1870-78: The China Tea Years

A brand new tea clipper launches

Cutty Sark was built in Dumbarton in 1869, designed to carry tea from China to England as fast as possible.
On 16 February 1870, Cutty Sark left London bound for Shanghai, via the Cape of Good Hope, on her first voyage. Commanded by Captain George Moodie, his log mentioned that she carried ‘large amounts of wine, spirits and beer’.
The arrival of the ship at Shanghai, with ‘manufactured goods’, is listed in the North China Herald of 2 June 1870. Departing with around 1,305,812 lbs of tea on 25 June, she arrived back in London on 13 October 1870.

This is the first of eight voyages the ship successfully made to China in pursuit of tea. However, Cutty Sark never became the fastest ship on the tea trade.

Dogged by bad winds and misfortune, she never lived up to the high expectations of her owner during these years. The closest the ship came to winning the tea race was in 1872, when she had the opportunity to race rival clipper ship Thermopylae head to head for the first time.

After arriving at Shanghai in late May 1872, she met Thermopylae when loading her tea cargo. With both sailing from Woosung on 17 June 1872, the two ships closely matched each other through the China Sea and into the Indian Ocean.

By 7 August, and with a good tail wind, Cutty Sark found herself a good 400 miles ahead of Thermopylae.

Then, on 15 August, disaster struck – Cutty Sark’s rudder gave way.

After reconstructing the rudder twice in heavy seas, the ship arrived back at London on 19 October, around seven days after her rival. The courage and determination of Captain Moodie and his crew won Cutty Sark great credit, but Moodie retired from his command of the ship due to stress. The ship was never to get this close to winning the tea race again.

Nonetheless, Cutty Sark would go on to become known as the fastest ship of her day, though not until the 1880s when she was in her teens.

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Cutty Sark - the fastest ship of its day

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Joseph Swain (1820–1909), after George Du Maurier, illustration in London Society. Wood engraving, 1862.

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A crowded afternoon tea-party, two women greeting each other warmly in the foreground, a bearded man with the younger of the two, bobbing behind her with his hat in his hand.

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Anthony Cardon (1772–1813), after Maria Cosway, published by Ackermann, Last the grey Dowager, in ancient flounces from the series Progress of Female Dissipatio

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An elderly woman preened, plumed and pinked in high fashion despite her age, sitting playing cards at a round table, leaning across it to left and gesturing as she gossips with her companion sitting opposite, who stirs the contents of a cup; after Maria Cosway. 1800 Etching and aquatint printed in sepia on yellow paper.

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Tea Bowl, c.1720. Porcelain, gold, silver and enamel tea bowl and saucer. Made at the Meissen Porcelain Factory. Germany, c. 1720.

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Teabowl and saucer; hard-paste porcelain; interior of cup and well of saucer gilded; exterior of cup decorated with applied rustic trophies and figures in low relief in black and brown enamel, silver and gold partly heightened with red; gold mark on base of saucer and cup; water-carrier for Aquarius on saucer, scales for Libra on cup.

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Jules Jacquemart (1837–1880), printed by Auguste Delâtre, Porcelaine tendre française (French soft-paste porcelain) from the series Vingt-six planches à l'eau-f

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By the Victorian era (1837–1901), tea drinking had become heavily engrained in the English home. It was a beverage enjoyed by all echelons of society, however, one way in which the tea experience differed was in the material culture of the table. Tea drinking for the wealthy came with a whole host of accessories – fine porcelain teacups, bowls and saucers, decorative teapots, mahogany tea caddies, silver tea urns, exquisite table linens and personalised tea blends. For them, the afternoon tea table was one of great opulence and refinement, a place to express your identity, interests and taste.

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Thomas Bewick (1753–1828), advert heading for newspapers, for William Wallace, grocer and tea dealer. Wood engraving, 1787.

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Advertisement heading for newspapers, for William Wallace, grocer and tea dealer, showing a tea caddy, lettered with 'East India Tea Warehouse', surmounted by head of a Chinese man on sprig of laurel, with two sugar loaves suspended from each end.

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Richard Houston (c. 1721–1775), after Philippe Mercier, published by Robert Sayer, Morning. Mezzotint with some etching, c. 1750.

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A fashionably dressed young woman, shown three-quarters length seated to left, eyes to front, breakfasting at round table in her bedroom, holding up a small cup in her right hand, her left on a cloth at the edge of the tray which is laden with a dish containing thin biscuits another cup and a bowl, teapot, milk-jug and sugar-bowl with tongs.

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Published by John Bowles (c.1701–1779), The Tea-Table. Etching and engraving, c. 1710.

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The Duchess of Bedford, who was one of Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting, was having none of it. Describing a 'sinking feeling' at about 5pm, she became despondent at the void between lunch and dinner. She requested that some tea, bread and butter and cake was brought to her room in the late afternoon – and with that one request of a lady's grumbling stomach, an afternoon ritual was born. Needing very little prompting to find an occasion to squeeze in another cup of tea and a piece of cake, the upper classes ate it up and the fashionable custom soon spread across Britain.

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John Cochran (fl. 1825–1854), after George Raphael Ward, The Most Noble Anna Maria Marchioness of Tavistock. Stipple, etching and engraving, c. 1820–1834.

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It's the seventh Duchess of Bedford, Anna Maria Russell, who we have to thank for the invention of afternoon tea, sometime around 1840. Due to increasing urbanisation and the rise in industrialisation (including the spread of gas lighting in England), the evening meal was becoming later and later. Whereas in rural farming communities the day had an early start and finished when the sun went down, wealthier classes, unhindered by such practicalities, were now having dinner closer to 9pm – with lunch many hours earlier at midday.