History of Tea Rooms, Tea Courts, and Tea Dances

Beginning in the late 1880's in both America and England, fine hotels began to offer Tea Service in Tea Rooms and Tea Courts. Served in the late afternoon, Victorian ladies (and their gentlemen friends) could meet for tea and conversation. Many of these Tea Services became the hallmark of the elegance of the hotel, such as the Tea Services at the Ritz (Boston) and the Plaza (New York).

By 1910 hotels began to host Afternoon Tea dances as dance craze after dance craze swept the United States and England. Often considered wasteful by older people they provided a place for the new "working girl" to meet men in a city, far from home and family. (Indeed, the editor of Vogue once fired a large number of female secretarial workers for "wasting their time at Tea Dances").

Nowadays,Tea Rooms,Tea Courts and Afternoon Tea Dances are everywhere in America and England.