Object of the Month

A King George III era tea caddy with original key, glass bowl and liners. Circa 1790-1810.

This caddy was designed for a single variety of tea.

By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the price of tea was dropping, and consumer preferences began to shift. Instead of buying smaller amounts of two distinct varieties to blend at the table, households would frequently purchase a single preferred variety in larger quantities.

The single left-hand compartment is quite deep and entirely lined with lead-foil to keep the leaves fresh and protected from moisture. A caddy of this size allowed a smaller household to store a generous amount of their favourite everyday tea leaf right alongside their blending bowl.

This bowl was used either to mix different batches of leaves or, very commonly by the Regency era, to hold loaf sugar that would be nipped and added directly to the brew.

By scaling the box down to just one leaf canister and one bowl aperture, it became the perfect size for a smaller parlour table, a lady’s dressing room, or for traveling. It gave the owner all the luxury of a glass blending well without the cumbersome footprint of a full-sized triple box.

This specific configuration is significantly rarer than the standard three-compartment variety.

The overwhelming majority of tea caddies manufactured between 1800 and 1860 were built as “triples” because blending tea at home was the dominant cultural fashion. A triple box was considered a necessary status symbol for a proper drawing-room tea ritual. Because manufacturers made them by the hundreds of thousands to satisfy middle- and upper-class households, they dominate the modern antiques market.

Two-compartment boxes without a glass bowl—meaning just two lead-lined wood compartments side-by-side for Green and Black tea—are also incredibly common. However, the exact asymmetrical arrangement in this caddy (one leaf compartment, one glass well) represents a smaller, niche market of production.

The survival rate of these single-canister/bowl caddies is much lower. Because these boxes were often intended to be portable or shifted around smaller morning tables, the glass bowls were highly susceptible to damage.