From the Boston Tea Party to Modern Teahouses: The History of American Tea Culture

Tea is having a moment in America. The beverage has grown increasingly popular, even surpassing coffee in the caffeinated beverage category in 31 states. Businesses, ranging from standard restaurants to bubble tea shops, have begun to add a range of tea flavors to their menus. From iced tea and matcha to milk tea and herbal blends, more than 159 million Americans consume tea on any given day. To understand the modern obsession with tea, it’s important to look back to its history and significance in the United States.

There is no definite document of when tea was first consumed, but several ancient legends about its origin offer possible clues. Some believe that Shen Nung, a mythological Chinese ruler known as the first Yan Emperor, accidentally discovered tea around 2737 BCE when a few tree leaves fell into his cup of boiling water. An Indian myth states that, in his fifth year of a 7-year sleepless meditation, Buddha plucked a few leaves from a nearby shrub, and began chewing them to reduce his fatigue. It is also presumed that tea was prepared and consumed by some Native Americans, who used the leaves of a native plant called the yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) to make a sacred “black drink” reserved for specific ceremonies.

Tea was discovered by Europeans during the Age of Exploration — a transformative period roughly spanning the early 15th to the early 17th centuries — and sold as an apothecary medicine. Initially, it was treated as a rare spice — costing over $100 per pound — and was reserved for wealthy individuals and nobility. In 1657, places like Thomas Garway’s coffeehouse began offering it to the public, outselling wines and liquors as middle-class merchants, politicians, and writers gathered and consumed the exotic drink.

In the mid-1600s, the Dutch brought tea to the New World. Upper society households consumed it regularly, accompanied by expensive porcelain teapots, bowls, saucers, and tea trays that emphasized the luxuriousness of tea at the time. By the early 1700s, the British East India Company began to import it to the colonies. As the beverage continued to grow more attainable for the general population, consumption reached roughly a cup a day for many ordinary households in the colonies. By the mid-1700s, tea prices lowered to 3 to 4 shillings per pound for legally imported British tea, and some colonists also bought smuggled Dutch tea for about 2 shillings per pound. However, according to Jane T. Merritt’s “Consumer Revolutions and the Politics of Tea,” tea was often obtained through labor exchanges and credit systems during this time period, making it more accessible to working class individuals. It was also associated with refinement, leisure, and domestic sociability.

Perhaps one of tea’s greatest impacts on the United States was its role in the American Revolution. In 1760, the British Parliament began passing a series of acts that restricted the freedom of American colonists and taxed them on certain everyday goods. The Tea Act (1773) allowed the British East India Company to bypass colonial wholesalers and sell tea directly to the colonies without paying duties in England. Because of this, the company was able to undercut the prices of smuggled Dutch tea, giving them a monopoly on the product. While the Tea Act lowered the price of tea, colonists viewed it as an underhanded way for Britain to force Americans to accept the tea tax. Local merchants and smugglers who sold cheaper, untaxed Dutch tea also feared the East India Company’s monopoly would ruin their businesses and set a dangerous precedent for future British control over colonial trade. Many unhappy colonists began to resist these laws through boycotts, public resolutions, and blockades of merchant ships.

Eventually Parliament eliminated all taxes except the tax on tea, which led to the pivotal Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. As a form of resistance to “taxation without representation,” the Sons of Liberty — a grassroots resistance group — boarded three British ships in Boston Harbor and destroyed 342 chests of tea by tossing them into the water. The Boston Tea Party went on to provoke harsh British retaliation as Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, which further united the colonies and led to the formation of the First Continental Congress.

Unlike the British, who primarily drank black tea, the majority of the U.S. market favored green tea in the early 1800s. China held a monopoly on the global tea market until 1859, when Japanese tea was imported to America on a commercial scale for the first time. After direct transpacific shipping routes were established in Seattle and San Francisco, Japanese green tea rapidly became a staple in the United States, accounting for nearly half of all American tea imports by 1880. In the mid-19th century, the British established massive tea plantations in Assam, India, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to cultivate black tea, which became increasingly popular in the United States due to availability and affordability.

American tea culture began to shift significantly in the early 20th century, eventually becoming what it is today. The St. Louis World’s Fair — a massive international event held from April 30 to December 1, 1904, showcased groundbreaking technological marvels, cultural exhibits, and iconic foods. It is considered the birthplace of iced tea. During the hot summer days, tea was poured over ice and offered as a cold drink. According to NPR, Prohibition also played a significant role in boosting the consumption of iced tea because the beverage was served as a substitute to alcohol in places like clubs and hotels.

In the same year, Thomas Sullivan — a tea and coffee importer from New York City — popularized the use of tea bags by accident when he started to give tea samples in small silk pouches and customers assumed that the pouches were meant to be placed directly into the teapot. Tea bags transformed the practice of preparing and drinking tea into a quick and convenient task, making them an American household staple by the 1950s.

Highly influential newspapers and magazines included advertisements and articles about different tea products throughout the 20th century, often promoting the health benefits of the beverage. These advertisements primarily targeted female readers and were not limited to simply marketing tea; they also included tea dresses, tea accessories, and recipes for tea cakes. Over time, advertisements helped tea products reach new customers and establish new forms of consumption.

Up until World War II, Americans primarily consumed black and green tea. It wasn’t until the counterculture movement in the 1960s and the introduction of brands like Celestial Seasonings that herbal tea products (like chamomile and peppermint tea) began gaining traction as a healthier, caffeine-free alternative. Organizations and brands like Traditional Medicinals (founded in 1974) further popularized the category by focusing on organic sourcing and the medicinal properties of herbs.  By the late 1980s, major tea brands, such as the Bigelow Tea Company, adopted the trend, pushing herbal teas out of specialty health food shops and onto traditional grocery store shelves nationwide.

In recent decades, specialty teas — high-grade, single-origin loose-leaf teas crafted from whole leaves — and cultural teas, such as Japanese matcha, Chinese Pu’er, and South African Rooibos, are attracting the attention of customers. The rapid growth of modern tea houses and specialized chains have not only increased the popularity of the beverage, but they have also increased the appeal for more diverse flavors. For example, bubble tea (boba) — a Taiwanese tea-based beverage — and vibrant fruit teas ranging from classic peach-infused black teas to tropical hibiscus herbal blends have become a widespread trend. Today, tea is a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States, one that is infused with international origins intertwined with American history.