Glasgow tearoom hosting talks on enduring relationship with ‘now-humble’ cuppa

Food experts and enthusiasts will gather in a famous Glasgow tearoom later this month to explore Scotland’s enduring relationship with the “now-humble” cuppa.

The annual Scottish Food Heritage Symposium, which takes place on Friday, will examine everything from the temperance movement that fuelled tearoom culture to the darker history of sugar and empire.

It will also investigate how quintessentially Scottish confections such as shortbread and empire biscuits became embedded in Scottish national identity.

The day-long event will take place at Mackintosh at the Willow, one of a number of tea rooms established in Glasgow in the 19th and 20th centuries as the city’s growing temperance movement took hold.

The organisers described the venue as a “fitting tribute” to tea’s cultural significance, and the part this and other tearooms played in transforming Scots’ social lives.

By providing an alternative to pub drinking culture, tearooms offered women spaces to meet friends, and changed tea from a luxury for the rich to a pleasure accessible to ordinary people.

“Tearooms and tea revolutionised how Scots socialised,” food historian Dr Lindsay Middleton explained.

“They created artistic spaces centred around tea rather than alcohol, particularly transforming social opportunities for women as both customers and entrepreneurs.

“Tea is inherently part of Scottish identity, but its rich history points to Scotland’s links with the rest of the world.

“At the symposium we are keen to explore that history and showcase how the now-humble cup of tea came to be so culturally ubiquitous.”

The Willow Tea Rooms were founded in 1903 by Kate Cranston, daughter of a Glasgow tea merchant and firm temperance advocate.

They were part of a series of “art tearooms” she established in collaboration with architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald, and provide what the organisers said will be a “stunning” architectural setting for the symposium.

Dr Middleton went on: “We are thrilled to be collaborating with Mackintosh at the Willow and the National Trust for Scotland to deliver the 2025 annual Scottish Food Heritage Symposium, which will highlight how the history of Scottish food and drink can be used as a tool for learning and connecting with our cultural and culinary heritage.”

Peter Gilchrist from Tenement Kitchen, which is organising the symposium alongside the University of Glasgow, said the event comes at a time when there is “a lot more excitement” about the topic of Scottish food heritage.

“People want to talk about their food memories, share family recipes and find out more about where exactly their food comes from,” he said.

He added: “Tea has been an (integral) part of Scottish life and Glasgow trade for centuries. What’s really exciting this year is that we get to celebrate female entrepreneurship as part of the programme of events.

“How many people know that the tearoom was invented by a Glasgow woman?”

Oliver Braid, National Trust for Scotland’s creative learning manager at Mackintosh at the Willow, said: “The Scottish tearoom phenomenon of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is increasingly recognised for its cultural and culinary significance, shaping Scotland’s food, drink, and social histories of gender, race and class.”

The programme includes a talk by writer Perilla Kinchin on the history of Kate Cranston’s tea rooms, as well as historical talks on tea smuggling, the dark history of sugar as a product of Caribbean slavery, and how sugar became part of Scotland’s national identity.

It also features a session on the “creative confections” inspired by the rise of afternoon tea, such as shortbread and the empire biscuit, and the recipes that defined Scottish tea-taking rituals.