Tea

The content on this site comes from my college thesis, written as a part of a BA in Cultural Anthropology at Vassar College written in 1994. The thesis, A Different Cup of Tea: The Culture of Tea in Britain and Sri Lanka is about the culture surrounding tea, and the different meanings affixed to the commodity by different cultures. I've excerpted the parts of this work that I think will be of interest to a larger audience. This is neither intended to be a complete history of tea or of Sri Lanka.

  1. Chinese Beginnings
  2. Tea Comes to England
  3. Afternoon Tea in Britain
  4. Tea and the Working Class
  5. The Health Debate
  6. Pre-Colonial Sri Lankan History
  7. Robert Knox and Tea
  8. Bibliography