LONDON: As Britain marks on Sunday the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, a new exhibition is opening here to shed light on links between the practice and that quintessentially British beverage: tea. The Victoria and Albert Museum is inviting visitors to stroll among its decorative arts and discover the birth of Britain's tea-drinking culture and its importance in the country's empire in the 17th and 18th centuries.

An 18th century painting in the West London museum -- “Family of Three at Tea” by Johann Zoffany -- shows the elevated social status of what was then a relatively new custom. “It was such an important occupation, people wanted to be painted doing it,” Christopher Maxwell, the museum's assistant curator of ceramics and glass said.

But this typically British custom would not have prospered without the slave trade, he added. “The tea culture was introduced by Catherine of Braganza, King Charles II's queen, from 1660,” he explained. — AFP