Food experts and enthusiasts will gather in a famous Glasgow tearoom later this month to explore Scotland’s enduring relationship with the “now-humble” cuppa. The annual Scottish Food Heritage Symposium, which takes place on Friday, will examine everything from the temperance movement that fuelled tearoom culture to the darker history of sugar and empire. It will also investigate how quintessentially Scottish confections such as shortbread and empire biscuits became embedded in Scottish national identity.
The organisers described the venue as a “fitting tribute” to tea’s cultural significance, and the part this and other tearooms played in transforming Scots’ social lives. By providing an alternative to pub drinking culture, tearooms offered women spaces to meet friends, and changed tea from a luxury for the rich to a pleasure accessible to ordinary people. “Tearooms and tea revolutionised how Scots socialised,” food historian Dr Lindsay Middleton explained.
“They created artistic spaces centred around tea rather than alcohol, particularly transforming social opportunities for women as both customers and entrepreneurs. “Tea is inherently part of Scottish identity, but its rich history points to Scotland’s links with the rest of the world. “At the symposium we are keen to explore that history and showcase how the now-humble cup of tea came to be so culturally ubiquitous.
” They were part of a series of “art tearooms” she established in collaborat.
