Tea time as a practice: Adoption, Adaptation and Negotiations in Everyday Life

Consumption behaviour studies have largely focused on rational decision-making to guide and explain why people eat the way they do; however, scholars have also highlighted the automaticity of our everyday activities and the extent to which they operate in a habituated, taken-for-granted mode to reduce cognitive load. In India, tea is consumed every day and has been studied historically in relation to its arrival and spread; however, tea time, as an everyday activity entwined with the routine, has rarely been examined as a moment of consumption.
This dissertation investigates tea time as a practice and examines its elements to highlight how it becomes routinised, what tacit rules organise it and how it takes different shapes in the presence of others. The establishment of tea time as a practice meant that tea time is stabilised through commonly shared rules and norms about how it is and should be performed. Therefore, using the practice theoretical approach, tea time was analysed to examine its constituent elements - the shared understandings, procedures and engagements- using participants’ narratives. The qualitative design of this research helped engage with the participants’ sayings and doings, situating tea time as a routine practice embedded in the temporal rhythms of everyday life. It aligned with the tempo of the day, meaning different things at different times of the day. Tea time was inherited as a practice through observation within the family and was largely adopted through repetition, with practitioners gradually recruited into the practice.
Similarly, tea time emerged as a social practice that was adjusted or adapted based on the social context. The presence of others shifted the elements of the practice, allowing it to change form while still remaining recognisable and stable. The analysis of these shifts highlighted the role of social interaction in sustaining tea time as a practice. In household settings, practitioners coordinated their practice with each other to maintain familial harmony and bonds. In workplace settings, tea time was similarly coordinated to align with organisational rhythms. In the presence of guests, tea time became a site of hospitality where the tea was the medium, but the accompaniments took a central role in conveying conviviality and care. While the shape of tea time varied, its identity remained intact even in the presence of guests, demonstrating that tea time functions as a social practice and constitutes as a minimum act of hospitality.
Finally, the study illustrated how health concerns are absorbed into the everyday. Practitioners were aware of potential health concerns and took preventative steps, but they did not quit the practice when health concerns arose or were anticipated. Instead, they adjusted the material elements of the practice to accommodate the health concerns, thereby sustaining their relationship with tea time. Unless the meaning of tea time was replaced by disgust for the taste or it symbolic value collapsed, the practice was flexibly modified rather than abandoned.
This study contributes to food studies in India by empirically demonstrating how everyday eating practices are sustained through routinisation, coordination, and adjustment rather than deliberate decision-making or behavioural change. By analysing tea time as a practice using a practice-theoretical approach, the study demonstrates how mundane eating persists through the reconfiguration of its elements even in changes in settings or health concerns. Practitioners are able to adapt the practice in their ways to preserve the continuity and recognisably rather than abandoning it. While this study does not seek to undermine the behavioural approaches grounded in rational decision making, it does highlight that such frameworks are insufficient for understanding and intervening in routinised eating practices. It highlights the importance of accounting for automaticity when designing policies or interventions; therefore interventions relying solely on information provision or individual choice are unlikely to disrupt entrenched practices. Instead, meaningful change requires engaging with the organisation of practices themselves, including their embeddedness in the temporal, social, and material arrangements.