Archaeological History of English Teaware

This essay was compiled from the research collected for a display case exhibit at the main office of ASI. Much like the display case, this essay offers a general history of tea and teaware in English culture. It seeks to encourage critical understanding and further inquiry on how material culture provides important chronological markers for understanding archaeological sites and the social, cultural, and economic forces that underlie those markers. In doing so, this paper dives briefly into how teaware was used as a medium of social discourse that helped shape gender, class, and race identity over the last 350 years.

Exhibit prepared by: Anatolijs Venovcevs and Caitlin Coleman