Put the Kettle on: Tea and other Hot Drinks in British Culture and Literature

Well into the mid-seventeenth century, everybody in England – men, women and children – drank beer. Beer was the standard drink because drinking water was not particularly safe, especially in cities. The transition from beer to hot drinks such as coffee, chocolate and, above all, tea in the British Isles is a remarkable phenomenon. We shall trace this development from its beginnings in the seventeenth century.

The rise of hot drinks was intimately connected with global trade, colonialism, slavery (no hot drinks without sugar, no sugar without slaves) and the opium trade (Chinese tea was exchanged for opium produced in British India). New habits such as coffee- and tea-drinking were taken over from various cultures of the Orient, especially the Ottoman Empire and China. To drink coffee or tea provided a physical connection with the Orient. There is an interesting connection between coffee, journalism and the development of the public sphere as the earliest newspapers were both written and read in London´s coffee houses. In the eighteenth century, the tea table became a site of middle-class domestic sociability. The etiquette of preparing and taking various drinks was intimately tied to evolving gender roles. Tea still retains a huge significance in the culture of British everyday life.

This seminar will include some hands-on experimentation. We will also prepare and taste some of these drinks, such as seventeenth-century style hot chocolate (you may be surprised by some of the ingredients listed in old recipes), various types of tea etc.

There will be a Moodle room. A reader and other material will be made available there. You will receive your Moodle password via e-mail.

Requirements: Good preparation for each session, active participation. Also written work according to your particular Studienordnung. Also, bring a mug.

Just in case your application is rejected by the LSF system: If you want to do this course because you are genuinely interested, you will be most welcome, no matter what LSF says. Please get in touch with claudia.hausmann@uni-due.de who will enrol you manually. The worst that might happen to you is that you cannot do a Leistungsnachweis if you lack the formal requirements.