Scandal in Ireland in the 19th century: Tea makes you lazy!

Rich landowners, often of British origin, leased their property in Ireland at the time to the rural population on poor terms. From the landowners' point of view, the lower class was supposed to find happiness in hard work, not by consuming leisurely luxury goods like tea or tobacco.

For as a colonial commodity, tea - intended in the 17th and 18th centuries only for the rich English upper class - had already become affordable for the middle class by the end of the 18th century. Then, in the 19th century, even workers and farmers could afford it from time to time. Tea was especially popular with women.

But critics from the middle and upper classes felt that tea-drinking peasant women were elevating themselves above their class by consuming a luxury good to which they were not entitled. Moreover, preparing and drinking tea cost time that the peasant women should rather spend working for their landlord or doing household chores for their husband. True to the motto "idleness is the root of all evil," women who indulged in a cup of tea were defamed as lazy and lethargic.

Leaflets pointed out that tea made women dependent and lazy. It was also feared that tea might awaken forbidden desires and revolutionary ideas. The lower classes were suddenly drinking the beverage that had previously been reserved only for the wealthy - what other rights and privileges might they now demand?

But the campaign was unsuccessful, the Irish remained loyal to tea, and the leaflets and pamphlets soon disappeared from the scene.