Author: Bruce Richardson
Tea Master for the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum

Mr. Richardson, a native Kentuckian, is a leading tea expert and spends much of his time educating Americans in the art of celebrating the communal cup of tea. He is a writer, photographer, tea blender, and frequent guest speaker at tea events across the country. and can often be found appearing on television and radio talk shows, or as a guest speaker at professional seminars such as World Tea Expo.

Books

• The Great Tea Rooms of Britain
• The Great Tea Rooms of America
• The New Tea Companion for The National Trust of England with London's Jane Pettigrew
• Tea in the City, a three-volume set of travel guides to tea in New York, London and Paris with Jane Pettigrew and Elizabeth Knight.
• Tea & Etiquette

Accomplishments

• Owner of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and Benjamin Press
• Contributing editor and designer for the 2011 edition of The Book of Tea by former Boston MFA Asian Arts Director, Okakura Kakuzo.
• Columnist for Tea Time magazine

What is Twankey Green Tea?

Not all tea was of equal quality during the 1700s. Two sometimes distasteful Chinese teas commonly found in London and Boston were Bohea (black) and Twankey (green). Both would likely be passed over by today’s savvy tea buyers. One reason for the appearance of these poor teas was that the demand for tea—any tea—to be […]

A Broken Teapot Fetches $800,000 at Auction

Gasps, and then applause filled the room as the gavel fell at Woolley & Wallis Auctioneers in the cathedral town of Salisbury recently when an unpretentious teapot—missing its lid and with a broken handle— fetched over $800,000, courtesy of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Remarkably, the keen-eyed owner paid only $20 for the relic […]

Tea Tables at Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg is a treasure chest which allows us to peek into the lives of our 18th century ancestors. And it houses a fascinating array of colonial tea tables and accompanying “tea things,” on display in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. Some of the first American – made tea tables were simply wooden trays positioned […]

A Victorian Afternoon Tea Guide

In country houses of Victorian England, the preparation of sandwiches, cakes, biscuits and other recipes for tea was carried out not in the kitchens but in the stillroom, where the maid worked under the direct supervision of the housekeeper. The stillroom in previous centuries had been the province of the mistress of the house, and […]

What European City is the Center of today’s Tea Market?

Which great European city is the capital of tea? Here’s a hint: it’s not located in the UK. The last gavel came down on the great London tea auction in 1998, ending an unequaled institution that began in 1679. Today the hub of world tea trade has moved east to Hamburg, the new “London” of […]

The Beauty of the Chinese Gaiwan

If I could own but one vessel for steeping tea, it would be a simple Chinese gaiwan—preferably porcelain and, if given a choice of sizes, always diminutive. I was reminded of its elegance on a recent trip to London where Juyan Webster made cup after cup of tea for me in her shop, The Chinese […]

Annual British Afternoon Tea Awards

There seems to be no end to the list of Best Afternoon Tea Places published in British newspapers and magazines or broadcast on the BBC. The world has long been enthralled with this quintessentially British ritual which we consider essential for maintaining a civilized society. The latest “Best of” compilation made news recently as winners […]

Tea Ware Buried 300 Years at Sea

Fishermen working off Vietnam’s Ca Mau peninsular in 1998 snagged their nets on a submerged obstacle. As their nets rose bulging with cups and saucers rather than fish, the men realized they had stumbled upon a treasure trove of centuries-old Chinese porcelain. They began dredging up and selling as much as possible before the authorities […]

The Tea Gardens of 18th Century London

The London tea gardens of the eighteenth century first brought tea out-of-doors in England. One of the reasons why gardens in the suburbs began to be more frequented than the centrally located but wholly masculine coffeehouses was that they offered their attractions to the fair sex as well as to the men. All sorts of […]

Why Did England Prefer Tea over Coffee?

Why does England drink more tea than coffee? Before the British East India Company turned its thoughts to tea, Englishmen drank mostly coffee. Within fifty years of the opening of the first coffee house in England, there were two thousand coffee houses in the City of London, alone! It is interesting to note that just […]