In addition, the Pemberton inventory lists a silver tea pot and “1 pr. Tea Tongs & Strainer,” items that were undoubtedly used with the ceramic sets.[[48]]
Tea sets were even available for the youngest hostess, and the “several compleat Tea-table Sets of Children’s cream-colored [ceramic] Toys” mentioned in a Boston advertisement of 1771 no doubt added a note of luxury to make-believe tea parties during playtime.[[49]] The pieces in children’s tea sets, such as the ones pictured from a child’s set of Chinese export porcelain ([fig. 6]), usually were like those of regular sets and differed only in size. Little Miss Livingston must have been happy, indeed, when her uncle wrote[[50]] that he had sent
... a compleat tea-apparatus for her Baby [doll]. Her Doll may now invite her Cousins Doll to tea, & parade her teatable in form. This must be no small gratification to her. It would be fortunate if happiness were always attainable with equal ease.
The pieces of tea equipage could be purchased individually. For instance, teacups and saucers, which are differentiated in advertisements from both coffee and chocolate cups, regularly appear in lists of ceramic wares offered for sale, such as “very handsome Setts of blue and white China Tea-Cups and Saucers,” or “enamell’d, pencill’d and gilt ([fig. 12]), red and white, blue and white, enamell’d and scallop’d ([fig. 13]), teacups and saucers.”[[51]] These adjectives used by 18th-century salesmen usually referred to the types and the colors of the decorations that were painted on the pieces. “Enameled” most likely meant that the decorations were painted over the glaze, and “penciled” may have implied motifs painted with a fine black line of pencil-like appearance, while “gilt,” “red and white,” and “blue and white” were the colors and types of the decoration. Blue and white china was, perhaps, the most popular type of teaware, for it regularly appears in newspaper advertisements and inventories and among sherds from colonial sites ([fig. 7]).
Figure 12.—Cup and saucer of Chinese export porcelain with scalloped edges and fluting. The painted decoration of black floral design on the side of the cup is touched with gold; the borders are of intersecting black vines and ribbons. (USNM 284499; Smithsonian photo 45141-D.)
Figure 13.—Hand-painted Staffordshire creamware teacup excavated at the site of a probable 18th-century and early 19th-century china shop in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Decoration consists of a brown band above a vine border with green leaves and blue berries over orange bellflowers. The spiral fluting on the body and the slight scalloping on the edge of this cup are almost identical with that on the cup held by Mrs. Calmes in [figure 15]. (USNM 397177-B; Smithsonian photo 45141-C.)
Concerning tea, the Abbé Robin went so far as to say that “there is not a single person to be found, who does not drink it out of china cups and saucers.”[[52]] However exaggerated the statement may be, it does reflect the popularity and availability of Chinese export porcelain in the post-Revolutionary period when Americans were at last free to engage in direct trade with the Orient. Porcelain for the American market was made in a wide variety of forms, as well as in complete dinner and tea sets, and was often decorated to special order. Handpainted monograms, insignia of various kinds, and patriotic motifs were especially popular. A tea set decorated in this way was sent to Dr. David Townsend of Boston, a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, by a fellow member of the Society, Maj. Samuel Shaw, American consul at Canton. In a letter to Townsend from Canton, China, dated December 20, 1790, Shaw wrote:
Accept, my dear friend, as a mark of my esteem and affection, a tea set of porcelain, ornamented with the Cincinnati and your cypher. I hope shortly after its arrival to be with you, and in company with your amiable partner, see whether a little good tea improves or loses any part of its flavor in passing from one hemisphere to the other.