Liberty Teas

From the “Talking Tea with Bruce Richardson” Video Series – Episode 3

The ladies of Colonial Boston swore off King George’s teas following the 1773 Boston Tea Rebellion, but they wanted to continue having their daily tea time. Tea Master Bruce Richardson explains how patriot families turned to their orchards and gardens to create herbal and fruit blends to steep in their tea pots. They used blueberries, apples, strawberries, roses, raspberries, peppermint and lavender to make their home blends. They called these faux teas “Liberty Teas.” Richardson has re-created a few of those Liberty Teas for the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum and Abigail’s Tea Room. They include Blueberry, Strawberry-Apple, and Serene Green. These historic Liberty Teas are available in the museum’s gift shop.

Transcript

Speaking: Teamaster Bruce Richardson
Caption text provided by Google/Youtube “Automatic Captions”*

0:00:23
hi. i’m bruce richardson tea master for the boston tea party ships and museum. this is one of the favorite teapots of my collection, an early english pot with a very unusual double handle. i found this at chester, england years ago. and the reason i love it is because ofthe spout. you see here it has a mend that’s probably a 100 years old. these are iron staples that were put in probably around 1890 because they didn’t want to toss this beautiful tea pot aside just because the spout was broken.

0:00:54
well our colonists were just as frugal and using their tea wares. and when it came to the point where they swore off king george’s tea they wanted to continue having their tea times. so they turned to their gardens and to their orchards to come up with blends compositions they could put their to their teapots and these teas were called liberty teas.

0:01:18
now i’ve created to three liberty teas that we will have available at the boston tea party ships museum one of them is blueberry we blended dried blueberries, dried apples, a bit of hibiscus, black currants and raisins together to make a very uh… naturally sweet and rich dark tea

0:01:40
and also did you know the colonists had wild strawberries so we have dried strawberries combined with apples and have hibiscus together to make a beautiful to be called strawberry apple and then we turn to the colonists herb garden where we find peppermint and chamomile. i’ve blended those two herbs with china green tea which the columnists would have had originally and I have a beautiful tea called serene green.

0:02:07
so all three of these tea blends are a nod to the liberty teas of the 1770s so when you come to boston be sure to visit our gift shop and find these beautiful liberty teas use and take home a commemorative tin to remind you of your time at the time at the boston tea party ships museum

0:02:28
so until we see you in boston go forth and make good tea

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