Tea began to be imported into Britain from the middle of the 17th century and its spread was bolstered by the transatlantic slave trade which saw it gain popularity as a luxury item until import duties were abolished in 1784. A fashionable and social drink, during the 18th century it was prepared in front of guests. English tea drinkers differed from their Chinese counterparts by preferring to drink tea hot and with milk and sugar, the latter becoming increasingly available through West Indies sugar plantations which relied on the exploited labour of enslaved African people.

The transfer-printed design on one side of the canister shows a well-dressed couple drinking tea in a garden, attended by a young black male servant, who pours hot water from a kettle into a teapot. At least 10,000 people of the African diaspora are estimated to have been living in 18th century England, most working as enslaved people used as exoticised motifs as domestic servants for elite families. For their affluent owners these people of the African diaspora were othered and aestheticised, presented as homogenous status symbols who offered ‘exotic associations’ like the new beverage and product of slavery, tea.