Appended to the letter was the following inventory,[[53]] which provides us with a list of the pieces deemed essential for a fashionably set tea table:
2 tea pots & stands
Sugar bowl & do
Milk ewer
Bowl & dish
6 breakfast cups & saucers
12 afternoon do
Porcelain, however, had long been a part of China-trade cargos to Europe and from there to America. The early shipments of tea had included such appropriate vessels for the storage, brewing, and drinking of the herb as tea jars, teapots, and teacups. The latter were small porcelain bowls without handles, a form which the Europeans and Americans adopted and continued to use throughout the 18th century for tea, in contrast to the deeper and somewhat narrower cups, usually with handles, in which chocolate and coffee were served. Even after Europeans learned to manufacture porcelain early in the 18th century, the ware continued to be imported from China in large quantities and was called by English-speaking people, “china” from its country of origin. Porcelain also was referred to as “India china ware,” after the English and continental East India Companies, the original traders and importers of the ware. “Burnt china” was another term used in the 18th century to differentiate porcelain from pottery.
Whatever the ware, the teacups and saucers, whether on a tray, the cloth, or a bare table, were usually arranged in an orderly manner about the teapot, generally in rows on a rectangular table or tray and in a circle on a round table or tray. In the English conversation piece painting titled Mr. and Mrs. Hill in Their Drawing Room, by Arthur Devis about 1750, the circular tripod tea table between the couple and in front of the fireplace is set in such a way. The handleless teacups on saucers are neatly arranged in a large semicircle around the rotund teapot in the center that is flanked on one side by a bowl and on the other by a jug for milk or cream and a sugar container. Generally, cups and saucers were not piled one upon the other but spread out on the table or tray where they were filled with tea and then passed to each guest.
