Tea Towels History

The History Of Tea Towels

The name 'tea towel' originates from early 19th century Victorian England. The tea towel was the linen of choice for Victorian ladies who liked its absorbent, lint-free, fine weave soft linen fibres. They deemed it to be ideal to dry their expensive and delicate china, glassware, and serving pieces without scratching or leaving surface lint. A popular Victorian pastime was to embroider personalised tea towels which were used at tea time to cover food, to wrap around the outside of the teapot to keep the tea warm for longer (tea cosy), and to take care of any spills.

American Dish Towels (tea towels)

During the first half of the 20th century, American housewives showed great ingenuity by transforming empty animal feed cotton sacks into dish towels (tea towels). The feed sacks were cut into suitably sized pieces of material, and the women would embroider intricate designs onto the plain cotton to give them a decorative and feminine look. The coarse cotton weave of the feed sacks were more difficult to embroider as compared to the finer weave of linen, nonetheless embroidery was decoratively applied.

My History With Tea Towels

In my early teens, I would visit my great aunt's seaside guest house. Her kitchen had a solid fuel Aga cooker, a big white Belfast sink, and her cutlery and dishes were dried with big traditional linen glass cloths. I was fascinated with the glass cloths, and sometimes I helped to dry the dishes. Maybe part of the fascination was due to not having big traditional linen glass cloths at home. Also in my early teens, I went on a day trip to Ayr in Scotland, where I purchased my first tea towel, a Scottish souvenir design displaying a bagpiper etc. Time has moved on now to All Tea Towels, and I continue to enjoy using designer tea towels in my kitchen from the All Tea Towels collection. I hope you will enjoy using them too.

thanks for reading,
Al McCavery