Brewed by women: the hidden heroines of tea's history

When most of us think of tea, what comes to mind is a warm cup on a rainy day, a moment of calm, a book, or perhaps the comforting ritual of afternoon tea and tea leaf reading. What rarely crosses our minds, however, is the role women have played, quietly, constantly, and often invisibly, in shaping every part of the tea journey, from field to teapot.

I'm not talking of only tea ladies, who play a massive part as well and often on a voluntary basis, and they're well known to my British audience.

Here it's their brief story, one brewed slowly and mostly left untold.

Empress Leizu and the first cup

Tea and silk share a fascinating overlap, both considered ancient treasures of China. According to legend, Empress Leizu, also known as Xi Ling-shi, was the wife of the Yellow Emperor and is credited with the discovery of silk when a cocoon dropped into her teacup while she was resting under a mulberry tree. As the story goes, she noticed how the fibres unravelled, leading to the invention of silk-reeling. In some versions of the tale, her teacup becomes just as symbolic, showing how women were present and active participants at the very dawn of Chinese domestic and intellectual life, where tea culture first took root.

Whether myth or memory, the legend places a woman at the confluence of observation, nature and craft; it values the very heart of tea appreciation. It’s a poetic origin and one that subtly asserts women’s place at the start of this most ancient ritual.

Spiritual roots and silent practitioners

In early Chinese and Japanese tea cultures, women played vital yet often overlooked roles. Daoist priestesses and Buddhist nuns consumed tea for spiritual clarity and stamina during meditation. They cultivated and prepared it not just for sustenance but as a practice aligned with inner stillness and sacred duty.

In Japan, long before the tea ceremony became a codified and male-dominated tradition, women served matcha in Zen temples and at shrines. These women were caretakers of the ceremony in its earliest, most fluid form, long before formal schools of chanoyu emerged. Today, many of the country’s most respected tea masters, such as those trained through the Urasenke school, include women who uphold and evolve these deeply meditative practices.

Photo courtesy of Rubina Ajdary, Unsplash

The plantation’s invisible workforce

Fast-forward to the colonial period and women’s roles became both more visible and more erased. In the vast tea estates of Assam, Darjeeling, Ceylon and Kenya, it was—and still is—women who do the bulk of the work. From plucking the delicate two leaves and a bud to sorting and processing, it is women's labour that underpins the global tea trade.

In Assam and Darjeeling, entire communities of Adivasi and tribal women were uprooted to work in colonial plantations. These women, many of whom were barely recognised by name, carried an intergenerational knowledge of plant cycles, soil behaviour and leaf quality. In Sri Lanka, Tamil women performed the intricate, back-breaking work of hand-plucking leaves for Ceylon’s booming tea industry. Yet the history books largely remember the planters and traders, almost always male and European.

Even in Kenya today, where tea remains a major export, smallholder farms often depend on the leadership and labour of women who manage the land, the harvest and the family economics that revolve around it.

Photo courtesy of Himanshu Choudhary, Unsplash

The Woman Behind Afternoon Tea

Afternoon tea, one of Britain’s best-known traditions, was started by Anna Maria Russell, the 7th Duchess of Bedford. In the 1840s, she found herself feeling hungry in the long gap between lunch and dinner. To solve this, she began asking for tea, bread and butter to be brought to her room in the afternoon.

What began as a small personal habit soon turned into a social event. She started inviting friends to join her, and afternoon tea quickly became popular among the upper classes. The tradition spread across the country and has remained part of British culture since.

The Duchess helped shape a new way of enjoying tea, not just as a drink, but as a time to gather, talk and relax. Her idea created space for women to come together in a time when public life was still very male-dominated.

Tasting circles, trade, and modern institutions

While history silenced many of the voices behind the leaf, modern tea culture has begun to shift, thanks in part to respected institutions that prioritise tasting, education and ethical sourcing. In these spaces, women are no longer silent stewards—they are educators, judges and flavour architects.

In the UK, Jane Pettigrew, co-founder of the UK Tea Academy, has been a defining voice in tea education for decades. Her work has helped elevate the craft of tea tasting to the same cultural level as wine or coffee, with courses that explore terroir, production and origin. Alongside her, Angela Pryce, a master tea blender and former Twinings expert, continues to shape industry standards through her consultancy and writing.

These aren’t niche players, they are central to how the West understands and values tea today, and they're only an example of the women leader working in the industry today.

Women designing the way we drink tea

Beyond fields and flavour, women have also influenced how we drink tea through design, invention, and industrial craft.

In 1901, Roberta Lawson and Mary Molaren, two women from Wisconsin, were granted a USA patent for the tea bag—designed as a "tea leaf holder" made from mesh for easy steeping. Though often overshadowed by later commercial versions, their contribution is part of the long, quiet lineage of female ingenuity in tea service.

In Britain, the world of ceramic design in the 20th century was revolutionised by women like Susie Cooper, whose elegant tea sets graced countless homes from the 1930s through the post-war era. Her modern yet graceful designs made tea fashionable for new generations. More recently, designers such as Emma Bridgewater have helped revive the handmade English teapot as a staple of both functionality and charm.

Even today, women-led brands are rethinking tea tools, from sleek glass infusers to traditional gaiwan reinterpretations, proving that aesthetic and ritual still matter.

Today’s ladies of the leaf

Across the globe, women are reclaiming their place in tea’s story, and not just as workers, but as leaders, educators, entrepreneurs and cultural stewards.

In Nepal, women are running micro-tea gardens that can rival Darjeeling in complexity and flavour. In Kenya, collectives of female farmers are producing artisanal teas using traditional methods, gaining global recognition for their innovation. In Britain and across Europe, tea sommeliers, many of them women, are setting new standards for tea appreciation, focusing on terroir, brewing technique, and ethical origin in a way that echoes the sommelier world of wine.

British voices like Henrietta Lovell, known as The Rare Tea Lady, have helped usher in a movement around direct trade and traceable sourcing. She’s not only brought extraordinary teas to top chefs and restaurants, but also highlighted the female farmers and makers behind them. Others, like for instance Kate Woollard and Jules Quinn, blend wellness, fun, and storytelling into every cup, creating brands rooted in personal narrative and spiritual connection.

Why these stories matter

Recognising the role of women in tea is not about rewriting history, it’s about completing it. Without women, there is little tea industry—past, present, or future. From the temples of Kyoto to the hills of Darjeeling, from Victorian drawing rooms to modern tasting tables, their hands, minds, and hearts have always been present.

To drink tea is, in some quiet way, to participate in that legacy; perhaps next time you stir your cup, you’ll think of the unnamed woman who plucked the leaf, the trailblazer who championed its flavour, and the modern artisan reshaping its future.

Because tea, for all its refinement, is a deeply human story and for much of that story, it has been women who brewed it into being.

Brewed by women: the hidden heroines of tea's history

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