Tea Caddies

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 111, 13 May 1933, Page 19

Tea Caddies

■ It is" quite a shock to remember that ' when "Teha or Tay, alias Tee," was '' ' still a. new and strange beverage, it » ' cost the prohibitive price of forty shil- ' lings a pound, and was only drunk by .. ' wealthy people on very special oeca- , - sions. ijveii in Great-Great-Grand- ' ■ ..mother's day, tea cost from sixteen ; shillings a pound upwards, and not a single leaf could be wasted. Hence the . fact that tea caddies always had a lock i.and key (states a correspondent). ,'.,.' Today, with tea so cheap and plentiful, these secure old caddies have lost their practical use, but are beginning to rank as fascinating curios. Tea ..■-•caddies of sorts date back, of co.urse, •finueh further—to the early sixteen 1 ■• hundreds, when tea was first introduced !•.., into England. It came from China, •: i, and the first caddies owed their inspira- ;■■: tion to the same country, being model- -.-. led on a Chinese ginger jar. They were —■made of porcelain. /■••• Probably it was one of these jar ■ii caddies which held the present of tea v that was sent, in its very early days ii.in England, to a certain Scottish lady. .■Sho welcomed the gift, but had not the ' .'faintest idea how to use it—or rather, ■"■•/ how to consume it, for a letter sent ■^ with the 'present gave instructions for t-a'brewing. Behold, then, the dear lady ii making her tea quite correctly, but ~'■ throwing away the fragrant liquid and serving the sodden leaves as a vegetable! And perhaps it was be-, - cause tea was bo expensive and pro- ■' cious that it was a common practice in ''"those far-away days of the seventeenth 1' "century to spread the leaves, after the ' "beverage had been enjoyed, as a sort '',; of "jam" on bread and butter. The next caddies were lidded vases or boxes of earthenware, silver or pewter. By 1700 someone had evolved the ~... bright idea of protecting the metal and ... ...making the twin caddies (for green and ~'black tea) easier to move about by en- ., .casing them in an ornamental wooden - ~ box. Later still, at a period when sugar '.'was heavily taxed and very expensive, .ii.jnany of the larger caddies had a cen-

'.!,',tral division containing a sugar basin. „,Georgian and Victorian caddies were ~,,,ofteii exquisitely hand-made of beauti...ful woods, mahogany, rosewood, satin--'wodd, carved, strapped with ivory or !\. delicately inlaid with mother-of-pearl. ~ Less common, but with a quaintness all . .\their own, were those of tortoiseshell , ...or others of painted wood.