Tea and gossip is a favourite pastime of many women in Bermuda. In the 18th century things were much the same.

The Bermudian way of tea is one of the focal points in a new exhibit in historic Odessa, Delaware in the United States. The exhibit is called Take Tea with Me — Gunpowder, Hyson or Bohea: Selections from the Rosemont House Collection of Tea Related Ceramics and Decorative Art. The exhibit in the historic Wilson Warner House in Odessa includes a Bermuda room arranged by Keith Adams of Delaware. He has been collecting Bermuda antiques and furniture for several years.

“The gist of the exhibition is to show how tea drinking has changed from 1700 to 1800,” said Mr Adams. “In one of the upper rooms I did an arrangement of Bermuda cedar furniture. Bermuda was very close to the American colonies and a lot of Quaker families in Philadelphia and Delaware had close ties with Bermuda through family and business. The man who built the Wilson Warner House was a Quaker.”

In the Bermuda room there is a Bermuda cedar table from 1710. It is arranged with two Chinese stoneware tea pots and some Ming porcelain cups from a wreck known as the Hatcher Cargo sunk in the 1640s.

“Bermudians in that early period had very ready access to Chinese export porcelain luxuries,” said Mr Adams. “They had a bit more access than people on the east coast of North America. That was due to their very good trading relations with the Dutch Caribbean.”

He said that at the beginning of the 18th century Bermudians tended to drink lemonade, socially, but towards the mid 18th century that changed and tea became more fashionable to sip with friends.

“Especially with men being at sea, women often gathered for tea as a social custom like in the American Quaker community,” he said. “Tea was also consumed in taverns along with coffee and chocolate. Early in Bermuda a lot of folks informally opened their houses as a tavern environment.”

Early Bermudians drank black or green tea from China. At first Bermudians drank it without milk, but the custom developed later. The ‘gunpowder, hyson or bohea’ in the exhibit name refer to popular types of tea at the time.

“From the beginning, Bermudians sweetened their tea with sugar,” said Mr Adams. “With Bermuda’s connection with the Caribbean sugar trade, they had ready access to sugar. I have an example of a Bermuda cedar chest from about 1750. In those days sugar would have come in cones wrapped up in paper. People would have kept that wrapped in the cedar chest along with other things they considered valuable.”

Mr Adams’ historic home, stocked with Bermuda antique furniture, is called Rosemont House and is in New Castle, Delaware, 20 miles north of Odessa. It was built in 1765 and is regarded as the best preserved colonial town house in Delaware.

He finds his antique Bermuda furniture in the United States.

“I would never take something like that out of Bermuda,” he said.

His own ancestors, the Swans, lived in Bermuda several centuries ago, before moving to Virginia.

“My most prized piece of Bermuda furniture is a turned cedar low chair,” he said. “It was originally owned by the Harvey family. It has its original Bermuda palmetto woven seat. It probably dates to the 1690s. It is an incredibly well preserved palmetto seat. When I bought it, it had oil cloth over the seat and that was packed with newspaper and other bits to pad it. That was probably put on in the 19th century. That helped to keep the palmetto seat perfectly preserved. I was really excited when I removed the canvas and found the original seat beneath.”

He said he finds that the Bermuda furniture doesn’t do as well outside of its natural environment.

“The humidity in Bermuda is friendlier to the Bermuda cedar,” he said. “With our harsh winters and heaters, the cedar tends to dry out. The rooms I have the furniture in I have humidifiers going in the winter.”

Mr Adams is a landscape gardener by trade and designs gardens working mostly with native plants.

The show is on until October 26. For more information see www.historicodessa.org/news/exhibit-take-tea-me-gunpowder-hyson-or-bohea-selections-rosemont-house-collection-tea-related-c or e-mail Mr Adams at kfradams@yahoo.com.