A Study of Tea Trade Cards in Georgian England

Trade cards were the original printed and illustrated business cards that merchants gave to their customers. Trade cards were an early form of advertising that comprised visual representations and concise text about the name, characteristics, and location of a business. This study examined approximately 200 tea trade cards in the British Museum to determine the characteristics of trade cards used by Georgian tea merchants and the role they played in promoting tea. Tea trade cards depicted items for sale, in the form of images like merchant signs. Designs that expressed chinoiserie and trade symbolism were common among many tea merchants. Sometimes British symbols were represented, and they functioned as maps showing store buildings. In this way, the visual appearance of tea trade cards was not simply a decorative element, but conveyed multilayered content and contained the message of the era. Some tea trade cards were used as transaction records, serving as a medium for establishing credit between tea merchants and tea consumers. Tea trade cards that reflected the latest printing techniques and artists’ works were also collected as works of art. Tea trade cards serve as historical data that allow us to understand the tea trade in the Georgian era. They also expanded the realm of art by being an original means of tea promotion and visual advertising of tea.