At her home in Hillgrove Street in Bristol, Elizabeth Johnson entertained fellow Methodists to tea. These included two young Africans, who were relatives of the slave trader, Grandy Robin John in Old Calabar (now Nigeria). They had themselves been enslaved but escaped. We don't know what they talked about over tea, or if she realised that West India merchants, importing slave-produced Caribbean sugars, promoted tea-drinking to increase sugar sales. Or whether, in old age, she joined the 1791 sugar boycott and took her tea without sugar.

The English started drinking tea in the 17th century, following the opening of trade with China, though only the rich could afford the high price. The amounts imported into England rose dramatically over the years (and the price fell), and the demand for sugar was linked to the consumption of tea. West India merchants, importing raw sugars for refining from the Caribbean, actively promoted tea drinking as it increased sugar sales.

Tea drinking became ritualised. Men drank rum punch in their clubs and coffee in coffee houses, where they did business. Women drank tea at home, and the tea table became the place where women socialised. By about the middle of the 18th century tea was cheap enough for the habit to spread down to the middle classes and the poor. For the poor, the sugar in their tea became an important source of cheap energy in a poor diet.