Why Does Britain Drink Tea Instead of Coffee? How the Switch Happened

At the end of the 1600s, London was one of the coffee capitals of Europe, full of coffeehouses where merchants traded news and deals. Yet today the cliché is a nation of tea drinkers. So why does Britain drink tea instead of coffee? No single event did it. A powerful trading company had tea to sell, a dramatic tax cut in 1784 made legal tea cheap, tea could be brewed easily at home by everyone, including the women shut out of coffeehouses, and by the 19th century an empire was growing tea in India and Ceylon.

Here is the story in order, and the five forces historians point to.

Key takeaways

• Coffeehouses spread in London from the 1650s; tea first appeared there as a novelty sold in a coffeehouse in 1658.
• The East India Company imported tea from the 1660s and later traded directly with China.
• The Commutation Act of 1784 cut the tea duty from 119 percent to 12.5 percent, killing the smuggling trade and making tea affordable.
• Tea suited home drinking, especially for women, who could not use coffeehouses.
• In the 19th century, British-grown tea from India and Ceylon, where coffee rust had wiped out plantations, sealed the shift.

In this article

1. Timeline: from coffeehouses to teapots
2. Five reasons Britain chose tea
3. Myths to drop
4. And today?
5. FAQ

Timeline: from coffeehouses to teapots

For the coffeehouse side of the story, see our article on London’s coffeehouses, the “penny universities”, and on the attempt to shut them in when coffee was banned.

Why does Britain drink tea instead of coffee? Five reasons

1. A trading company with tea to sell

The East India Company began importing tea in the 1660s, first through other markets and by the early 1700s directly from China. Britain’s largest trading company therefore had every interest in a growing home market for tea. It is often argued that coffee never had a comparable British champion, since much of Europe’s coffee trade ran through Dutch and French colonial networks.

2. The 1784 tax cut

For most of the 18th century, tea was heavily taxed, and a huge smuggling trade supplied much of what people drank. In 1784, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, advised by tea merchant Richard Twining, passed the Commutation Act. It cut the duty on tea from 119 percent to 12.5 percent. Smuggling largely collapsed, legal tea became cheap, and the Company, which was in debt, gained a bigger lawful market.

3. Tea moved into the home, and women drove it

Coffeehouses were male spaces. Tea, sold dry by merchants like Twining, could be brewed in any kitchen or parlor with just a pot and hot water. Thomas Twining sold loose tea to customers who could not visit coffeehouses, particularly women. Tea became the drink of the household, of hospitality and, later, of the afternoon tea ritual, while coffee stayed tied to public houses that gradually declined.

4. Sugar, milk and empire

Tea in Britain was drunk with sugar from Caribbean plantations, many worked by enslaved people, and with milk. The combination made a filling, cheap, warming drink that spread through every class during the 18th and 19th centuries. The temperance movement of the 1800s also promoted tea as a respectable alternative to alcohol.

5. Britain started growing its own tea

China guarded its tea plants, and Britain paid for Chinese tea in silver, a drain it tried to offset with opium grown in Bengal, a trade that led to the Opium Wars. In the 19th century, Britain set up tea plantations in its own colonies. In Ceylon (today’s Sri Lanka), coffee had been the main plantation crop until a fungal disease, coffee leaf rust, devastated estates in the 1870s. Planters switched to tea so quickly that by 1888 the area under tea exceeded that under coffee. Empire-grown tea became cheaper and more plentiful than ever.

Myths to drop

• “Catherine of Braganza introduced tea to England.” Tea was already being advertised in London before she arrived in 1662. She may have made it fashionable at court, but even that is debated.
• “The British always preferred tea.” Not in the late 1600s, when coffeehouses dominated London’s social and business life.
• “Coffee disappeared.” It never did. Coffee simply lost the mass market to tea for a long time.

And today?

The story has partly reversed. Espresso bars and specialty roasters have made coffee hugely popular in Britain again, and many Britons drink both. If you are curious how the two compare in your cup, our guide to coffee vs tea caffeine lays out the numbers.

Taste both sides of the story

For the tea side, our English Breakfast blends African and Indian black teas, strong enough for milk and sugar, the way Britain learned to drink it. Earl Grey uses Ceylon black tea with bergamot and cornflowers, a cup that links straight back to the island’s switch from coffee. For the coffee side, Breakfast Blend is a smooth, nutty medium roast for your morning. Explore all our teas.

Britain, tea and coffee FAQ

When did Britain switch from coffee to tea?

Gradually, across the 18th century, with a sharp boost after the 1784 Commutation Act. By the mid-1800s, tea was popular at every level of society.

Did the East India Company make Britain drink tea?

It was a major driver, as tea became one of its key imports, but taxes, home brewing, sugar and later colonial plantations all played a part.

What was the Commutation Act?

A 1784 law, introduced by William Pitt the Younger, that cut the tea duty from 119 to 12.5 percent to end smuggling.

Why did Ceylon switch from coffee to tea?

Coffee leaf rust devastated its coffee plantations in the 1870s, and planters replaced coffee with tea within about two decades.

Sources

1. Taking Tea: Britain, University of Exeter.
2. Commutation Act 1784, Wikipedia.
3. What was the tea trade?, Royal Museums Greenwich.
4. Ceylon tea history, Sri Lanka Tea Board.

Facts checked in October 2026.

Keep reading: London’s penny universities · History of coffee · Teas