Promoting tea helped control social problems related to alcohol.

Evidence

The ruling classes had a real interest in promoting tea drinking among the growing urban population, who were poor, vulnerable to disease and perceived as prone to disorderly drunkenness. Beer, port and gin had become a significant part of the diet of men, women and even children, partly because alcohol as a mild antiseptic was much safer to drink than unpurified city water. But by the nineteenth century alcohol was a growing social problem. — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1408

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1408
• XREF: connects to: Tea symbolizes social history in nineteenth-century Britain. — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1413; Frontier temperance colonies policed drinking even beyond their own borders — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 49

Broader Connections

• Tea symbolizes social history in nineteenth-century Britain. #expands (0.65) — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1413