Tea on the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Photo: Creative Commons, T. Voekler, under license CC-ASA 3.0

Meriwether Lewis’s supply inventory mentions purchasing two pounds of “English” tea. Our immediate assumption today is this tea would have been in the little bags of loose tea similar to what we’re accustomed to using.

But, according to author Leandra Zim Holland in her book, “Feasting and Fasting with Lewis and Clark,” tea in the early 19th century would have been in small, compressed bricks. Pieces from the brick would have been cut or scraped off and placed into boiling water.

There are very few mentions of tea throughout the journals, probably because it was such a common part of the men’s lives – hardly worth mentioning.