In 18^th-century America, tea customs stemmed from the social customs brought to New Amsterdam (now New York City) by Dutch settlers in the 17^th century and by the English colonists. Dutch Colonists erected tea water pumps over natural springs and later established tea gardens near the springs. Not only were the early colonists drinking spring water, but also green tea, called hyson. Early colonists added sugar, even saffron and peach leaves. By the early 18^th century, tea was considered the handmaiden of fashion and refinement.

Although much of the fine china adorning tables was from the Continent and China, teapots from local potteries established in New England, New York, New Jersey, and South Carolina found a special place at the tea table early in the 18^th-century. Many of the potters had emigrated from England. Accoutrements for the tea service became a symbol of gentility. The long-awaited tea all the way from China via England and Holland was an extravagance only the wealthy could afford. Tea chests and tea caddies often had locks, or the precious porcelain tea caddies would have been stored behind a locked cabinet. Uniquely American, the parlor closet in New England exuded the fragrance of hospitality, where the tea, sherry, and fruitcakes were always on hand for the unexpected visitor.

The tea trade with England and Holland centered in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. As early as 1690, a license to sell tea in Boston was issued to Benjamin Harris and Daniel Vernon. John Hancock and other well-known founding fathers engaged in smuggling tea, contributing to the reduction of tea purchased from the British from 320,000 pounds to only 520 pounds. By 1772, the East India Company had 18 million pounds of unsold tea in warehouses. In June of 1772, merchants and sailors burnt the British schooner, Gaspee, at Namquit Point, Rhode Island, in protest of King George III's amended Townshend Act, April 1770, when all duties would be removed except that on TEA. To save the East India Company and undercut the smugglers, Britain passed the Tea Act in 1773. On behalf of John Hancock and other known smugglers, Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty dumped 342 chests of tea worth 9,659 pounds sterling and six shillings into Boston Harbor. Paul Revere played the part of an “Indian” tossing the precious cargo of tea into Boston Harbor on that dark December night in 1773. Following the Boston Tea Party, colonists up and down the east coast protested in New York, Greenwich, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Chestertown and Annapolis, Maryland, Edenton, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. They followed suit by rejecting, throwing the tea overboard, boycotting, and in one case even had the owner of the Peggy Stewart burn his own ship in the Annapolis harbor.