No Time for Tea: Hidden Figures of the Dutch Tea Industry

This paper explores the historical role women played in promoting, distributing, and establishing tea consumption in The Netherlands. Despite being the first nation to introduce tea to the Western world, and the abundance of literature and images documenting women as sapless tea drinkers, languishing their afternoons away, entertaining and sipping the amber brew in their tea houses, the latter is far from reality. Preliminary research indicates Dutch women were instrumental in establishing an elite tea industry in The Netherlands and beyond. Aptly the authors utilized the archives to explore visual and narrative data dating from 1610 to present, to find evidence of women’s role in tea production, tea importation and its distribution to the rest of Europe and beyond, to include but not limited to royal patronage, the establishment and management of large tea houses, and the implementation of tea museums and tourist attractions across the Netherlands.