page_title: Tea in the United Kingdom
section_title: Tea cards
hierarchical_section_title: Tea in the United Kingdom / Tea cards
caption_attribution_description: English: No known copyright restrictions. Please credit UBC Library as the image source. For more information, see digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/about. Creator: Unknown Date Created: [between 1910 and 1919?] Source: Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Arkley Croquet Collection. Permanent URL: digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/singleitem/collecti...
context_page_description: Since the eighteenth century, the United Kingdom has been one of the world's largest tea consumers, with an average annual per capita tea supply of 1.9 kg. The British Empire was instrumental in spreading tea from China to India; British interests controlled tea production in the subcontinent. Tea, which was an upper-class drink in continental Europe, became the infusion of every social class in Britain throughout the course of the eighteenth century and has remained so. Tea is a prominent feature of British culture and society.
  In both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, the drinking of tea is so varied that it is difficult to generalise. While it is usually served with milk, it is not uncommon to drink it black or with lemon, with sugar being a popular addition to any of the above. Strong ordinary tea, served in a mug with milk and often sugar, is a popular combination known as builder's tea. Tea is often accompanied with sandwiches, crumpets, scones, cake and/or biscuits, with a popular British custom being dunking the biscuit into the tea.
context_section_description: In the United Kingdom, a number of varieties of loose tea sold in packets from the 1940s to the 1980s contained tea cards. These were illustrated cards roughly the same size as cigarette cards and intended to be collected by children. Perhaps the best known were Typhoo tea and Brooke Bond (manufacturer of PG Tips), the latter of whom also provided albums for collectors to keep their cards in. In the brand named Brooke Bond Dividend D, the card was a dividend ("divvy") against the cost of the tea.
  Some renowned artists were commissioned to illustrate the cards, including Charles Tunnicliffe. Many of these card collections are now valuable collectors' items.
  A related phenomenon arose in the early 1990s when PG Tips released a series of tea-based pogs, with pictures of cups of tea and chimpanzees on them. Tetley's tea released competing pogs but never matched the popularity of the PG Tips variety.
caption: Union Pacific Tea Co. advertising card
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