A prevalent image of the American Revolution often centers on black tea as the primary beverage, but historical accounts indicate that green tea held equal popularity among colonists, according to tea historian Bruce Richardson.
During the era leading up to and including the 1776 Revolution, British subjects in England and the American colonies consumed both green and black teas. "The Founding Fathers and their contemporaries drank both types of tea," Richardson, founder of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and tea master at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, told Fox News Digital. "British subjects 'were as likely to be drinking green tea as black tea, whether you were in Jane Austen [era] England ... or you were in colonial Boston.'"
Five types of tea, all imported from China, were available at the time: two green teas and three black teas. Richardson identified the teas dumped into Boston Harbor in protest of the Tea Act of 1773 as the black varieties Bohea, Souchong, and Congou, along with the green teas Hyson and Singlo.
Bohea, the most common and least expensive black tea, was made from older leaves and was so ubiquitous that it became a common descriptor for tea itself, akin to how "Kleenex" is used for tissues today. "It was so common that often teapots at the time, or some that I've seen, would say Bohea on the side of the teapot," Richardson noted.
Colonial Americans also distinguished between the storage of green and black teas. Wealthier individuals would keep their tea in specially made wooden tea caddies, often with separate compartments for each type of tea. "The well-to-do people would have a tea caddy – a wooden, beautifully made tea caddy to store their tea in," he explained. "It was kept under lock and key. And in that tea caddy, [there] would be two compartments, one for green tea and one for black tea."
Merchants often preferred black tea for the long sea voyages from China to the American colonies because it retained its quality better than green tea. "The green tea was what China had always drunk," Richardson said. "And so they were exporting that as well, but they found that the black tea actually made the voyage better than the green teas."
Despite the growing opposition to British policies, the tradition of tea drinking persisted. Many patriots, after boycotting British goods, brewed so-called "Liberty Teas." These were concoctions made from ingredients like dried apples, blueberries, chamomile, and herbs grown domestically. "They still wanted their tea time, but they didn't want to support the British government," Richardson said.