Rodris Roth in the book "Tea Drinking in 18th-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage" discusses the value Americans place on tea drinking. This book contains illustrations of some of the teacups, tea canisters, porcelain, hand-crafted cups, etc. used by people during the eighteenth century. It discusses the onset of the Americans' civilization.

Tea in 18th Century America gives the reader insight into the importance of tea in the Colonial and the early Federal era. The book begins with an introduction to the history of tea and its journey to the shores of America. Then, while giving credit to the research done by Rodris Roth in the 1960s, additional extensive research utilizing period newspapers, historic texts, period portraits and prints is added that immerses the reader into the Colonial American world. Included within are chapters on when colonists drank tea and instructions on how to understand 18th century recipes, as well as how to identify foods that are perfect to prepare and then eat when having your own tea party. From dessert collations and preparation notes for each recipe to descriptions of how food was given color and even how medicinal teas were used to cure ills, this book covers a wide variety of interesting topics. A bonus chapter focuses on the life of Charles Carroll the Barrister's wife, Margaret Tilghman Carroll, during her time at Mount Clare in Baltimore, Maryland. Mrs. Carroll kept an account book that included an inventory on tea items she owned and recipes she wrote down within it. That book is preserved in the Maryland Historical Society library.

How tea’s political meaning shaped the culture and economy of the Anglo-American world. Americans imagined tea as central to their revolution. After years of colonial boycotts against the commodity, the Sons of Liberty kindled the fire of independence when they dumped tea in the Boston harbor in 1773. To reject tea as a consumer item and symbol of “taxation without representation” was to reject Great Britain as master of the American economy and government. But tea played a longer and far more complicated role in American economic history than the events at Boston suggest. In The Trouble with Tea, historian Jane T. Merritt explores tea as a central component of eighteenth-century global trade and probes its connections to the politics of consumption. Arguing that tea caused trouble over the course of the eighteenth century in several different ways, Merritt traces the multifaceted impact of that luxury item on British imperial policy, colonial politics, and the financial structure of merchant companies. Merritt challenges the assumption among economic historians that consumer demand drove merchants to provide an ever-increasing supply of goods, thus sparking a consumer revolution in the early eighteenth century. The Trouble with Tea reveals a surprising truth: that concerns about the British political economy, coupled with the corporate machinations of the East India Company, brought an abundance of tea to Britain, causing the company to target North America as a potential market for surplus tea. American consumers only slowly habituated themselves to the beverage, aided by clever marketing and the availability of Caribbean sugar. Indeed, the “revolution” in consumer activity that followed came not from a proliferation of goods, but because the meaning of these goods changed. By the 1750s, British subjects at home and in America increasingly purchased and consumed tea on a daily basis; once thought a luxury, tea had become a necessity. This fascinating look at the unpredictable path of a single commodity will change the way readers look at both tea and the emergence of America. “By tackling a commodity we think we already know in its political, economic, and cultural dimensions, Jane T. Merritt demonstrates that the true story of tea is more complex and global than readers might expect. The Trouble with Tea is a surprising and detailed look at how the long-term moral debates over tea overlapped with and offered a vocabulary for the politicized debates of the Revolutionary War era.” —Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, author of The Ties that Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America “Long before Bostonians dumped tea overboard, tea was trouble: as trading companies pushed it and consumers sipped it, tea sparked debates over free trade and dangerous luxuries. With her wide-ranging command of global commerce and domestic politics, Merritt tells a vital tale about how tea shaped our world.” —Benjamin L. Carp, author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America

This collection of essays covers the representation and practice of drinking a variety of beverages across eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain and North America. The case studies in this volume cover drinking culture from a variety of perspectives, including literature, history, anthropology and the history of medicine.

British writer and tea historian Jane Pettigrew has joined forces again with American tea writer Bruce Richardson to chronicle the fascinating story of tea's influence on British and American culture, commerce and community spanning nearly four centuries. These two leading tea professionals have seen first-hand the current tea renaissance sweeping modern culture and have written over two dozen books on the subject of tea, including The New Tea Companion. No beverage has shaped Western civilization more than the ancient elixir - tea. Follow tea's amazing journey from Canton to London, Boston and beyond as these two leaders of today's tea renaissance weave a fascinating story detailing how the leaves of a simple Asian plant shaped the culture and politics of both the United Kingdom and the United States. CHAPTER HIGHLIGHTS THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: First Tea in England * East India Company * America's Thirst for Tea * Tea Jars & Caddies THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: Teas for Sale * Tea Smuggling * Tea Etiquette * Liberty Tea * Boston Tea Party THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: An Empire Built on Tea * Jane Austen's Tea Things * Afternoon Tea * Glasgow Tea Movement * Tea & Suffrage THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: Teabags * The Tea Room Movement * Wartime Tea * Rise of American Tea Brands * Tea Dances * Specialty Tea THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY The American Teasmith * Tea & Health * The Starbucks Effect * Culinary Tea