Welcome to the fifth installment of the In A Sense series. These blogposts are linked with the In A Sense tactile exhibit currently on display in the Dalnavert Museum Visitor’s Center. For additional resources, follow the links at the bottom of this post. To see the full exhibit, drop by the museum or book a tour through our website.
What do you drink when you get up in the morning? A strong espresso? A mug of tea? Hot chocolate? Perhaps some ice water to accompany a workout? Victorians also had morning rituals surrounding drinks but their experience of these liquids would have felt quite different to us. Therefore, I invite you to come along and see how certain Victorians might have been drinking their morning brew.
Victorian era McLaughlin's Coffee advertising card, 1893
Coffee: Coffee houses had been a staple in English cities since the 1650s. They were nicknamed “Penny Universities” due to the highly specified intellectual conversations they stimulated in their clientele and were popular in the Victorian era because they remained a non-alcoholic gathering space during the temperance movement. In England, the popularity of tea meant a gradual shift into teahouses, while in North America the rise of tea prices did the opposite, causing a spike in coffee drinking. A popular form of coffee in North America originated in the Wild West known as cowboy coffee. Unlike espresso drinks where the coffee is finely ground and filtered, cowboy coffee was made by boiling course grounds and pouring the strong drink directly into a mug: think French Press without the filter. Pre-roasted grounds were made widely available in the 1850s, helping to reduce the burnt taste of badly roasted beans. Salt, eggshells, and a splash of cold water could also be added to settle the grounds and reduce the bitter taste.
Babington’s Tearoom, Rome. Founded by Isabel Cargill and Anne Marie Babington in 1893.
Tea: Unlike coffeehouses which were mainly filled with men, teahouses and their at-home afternoon tea counterparts included women. While some of these spaces were opulent and out of reach for many people due to their high price range, a simple afternoon tea was common, not only offering a small dose of caffeine but allowing a space of freedom for women to share ideas and test out fashions. In workspaces, afternoon tea was also an essential break for workers to gain sustenance and boost morale. Tea was kept loose in tea tins or boxes, imported from India and China with the popularization of teabags only coming into effect at the turn of the 19th Century. The British milk-before tea debate can be traced back to the days of fine chinaware, where one could add milk before scalding tea to save a fine teacup from damage. If lemon, sugar, or spices are preferable in your cup of tea, by all means add them. You would be in the fine company of Victorians from across the globe, including Queen Victoria who enjoyed her Earl Grey tea with a slice of lemon.
Rowntree Chocolate Factory, 1913
Hot Chocolate: Chocolate started out its life -- in European circles – as a drink. It was bitter and a little oily, but served as a medicine and could be palatable when mixed with milk or sugar. Chocolate was sold as cocoa cakes or gritty cocoa powder, made into a drink by adding hot water to a specialized chocolate pot and vigorously stirring in cocoa powder. The drink had to be constantly re-stirred to loosen and dissolve the powder. The late 1870s saw the invention of chocolate conching which smoothed out the cocoa and led to the creation of chocolate confections when mixed with milk powder and cocoa butter. The creation of chocolate bars meant that people could also make drinkable chocolate without special tools by grating and melting the chocolate with water. Hot chocolate could be a breakfast drink or a substitute for afternoon tea.
Sailors transporting ice to India on board the British troop ship HMS Serapis, 1875. DINODIA PHOTOS/ALAMY
Ice Water: Artificial refrigeration was already a possibility by the Victorian era using techniques such as ammonia and salts. However, the ice trade was still in full force in the mid 1800s with ice blocks being harvested across winter ponds in North America and Europe. These blocks were shipped across the globe using sawdust as an insulator, a technique popularized by Frederick Tudor in the early 1800s. The ice came in large blocks which would be placed into ice houses for storage and sent off to homes to be used in ice boxes on a set schedule. While drinks were cooled using ice, the addition of small cubes was not common until the cocktail industry took off in America around the 1860s. The clean ice off lakes was preferable to chemically-made ice for its purity of taste, a fact which only became clear by the 1920s when refrigeration mixed with the temperance movement created a slew of unpalatable drinks. One would often have to get their clean water from the newly-erected water fountains instead of taps or fridges. Nowadays, the ice trade (and clean water) is making a comeback. Though public water fountains may be out of favour, you can find carved ice in specialty bars across the world… though not at Victorian prices.
Articles and Resources:
“A Brief History of Ice” https://www.alcoholprofessor.com/blog-posts/blog/2018/03/19/a-brief-history-of-ice
The British Museum https://blog.britishmuseum.org/the-tea-rific-history-of-victorian-afternoon-tea/
The Canadian Encyclopaedia, “Poundmaker” https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/poundmaker
“Chocolate in the Victorian Era,” https://cogpunksteamscribe.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/chocolate-in-the-victorian-era-a-steampunk-feminist-perspective/
English Heritage, “How to Make Victorian Ice Cream” and “English Coffee, Penny Universities” https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/victorian-ice-cream/ and https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/English-Coffeehouses-Penny-Universities/#:~:text=Revived%20in%20the%20Victorian%20era,classes%20could%20meet%20and%20socialise.
The French-Canadian Genealogist, “The Ice Cutter” https://www.tfcg.ca/ice-cutter-occupation
Johnson, Ben “Afternoon Tea” Historic UK, https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Afternoon-Tea/
Lee, Felicia. “The Untold Truth of Cowboy Coffee” Mashed. https://www.mashed.com/912562/the-untold-truth-of-cowboy-coffee/
Madsen, Lea Heidberg, Dining with the Darwin’s: Senses and the Trace in (Neo-)Victorian Home Cooking http://www.neovictorianstudies.com/past_issues/6-1%202013/NVS%206-1-6%20L-Heiberg%20Madsen.pdf and http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=CUL-DAR214.%280-157%29&viewtype=image
Mars, Roman. “Fountain Drinks” 99% Invisible. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fountain-drinks/
Mitenbuler, Reid “The Stubborn American Who Brought Ice to the World” The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/the-stubborn-american-who-brought-ice-to-the-world/272828/
The National Archives “Victorian Food and Drink”: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/victorian-food-and-drink/
“The Victorian Love Affair with Chocolate” http://historicalromance.love/the-victorian-love-affair-with-chocolate/#:~:text=The%20Victorians%20consumed%20cocoa%20and,to%20her%20guards%20as%20presents.
For more go to https://www.friendsofdalnavert.ca/savour