# 152 Early 19th Century Tea - Still Extremely Fashionable

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-history-of-american-food-3626516/152-early-19th-century-tea-still-extremely-fashionable
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-history-of-american-food-3626516/152-early-19th-century-tea-still-extremely-fashionable.md
Podcast: [The History of American Food](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-history-of-american-food-3626516)
Published: 2025-08-20T10:00:08+00:00
Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/152-early-19th-century-tea-still-extremely-fashionable--67448406
Audio file: https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/67448406/152_early_19th_century_tea_still_extremely_fashionable.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-history-of-american-food-3626516/episodes/152-early-19th-century-tea-still-extremely-fashionable
Duration seconds: 1845

## Resource

Last show on the substandard mic - but the paper towel as popfilter helped some. Let's talk tea - what tea were people drinking in the early 19th century? The answer was almost uniformly, "bad tea". Ignorance lead to people needing sugar in their tea b/c they were drinking the bad stuff. In fact a whole grade of "export quality" tea was invented to fulfill the growing global/European/American demand. Just in this case - "expot quality" mostly meant the dregs. Or the dust anyway. Understanding that most tea Americans were drinking in this age was somewhere between stale and adulterated, and only became more so as time went on, the swing to coffee starts to make more sense. It had less to do with feelings towards England, and more to do with the tea just not tasting that good. To understand just what tea was then, join in... Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/ Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com Threads: @THoAFood Instagram: @THoAFood & some other socials... @THoAFood Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/ Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com Threads: @THoAFood Instagram: @THoAFood & some other socials... @THoAFood

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-history-of-american-food-3626516/episodes/152-early-19th-century-tea-still-extremely-fashionable/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-history-of-american-food-3626516/152-early-19th-century-tea-still-extremely-fashionable.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.