| Summary/Abstract |
In analysing a campaign launched by the Indian Tea Market Expansion Board in a Hindi literary periodical, this article seeks to read tea advertisements within the cultural history of gendered lives and nationalism in the decade leading up to Indian Independence. More specifically, it explores how multiple versions of feminized Indian modernity came to feature in the construction of black tea as a healthy, social, and national beverage. As the habit and custom of tea drinking was not common amongst the Indian population of the first half of the twentieth century, the advertisements focused on the creation of a culture of ‘proper’ tea preparation and ‘correct’ consumption. Not only did the middle-class woman and her family feature centrally in these advertisements; aristocratic and working women as well as movie actresses were all associated with the beverage drunk to reenergize and savour. While the advertisements addressed middle-class society and consciousness, this article argues that they did so by also drawing on, and not distancing from, diverse class, caste, and professional contexts.
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