By 1920, lemons were readily available across the U.S. Trains quickly transported them across the country. And, the California Fruit Growers Exchange had even branded lemons produced by its growers as Sunkist Lemons.
I enjoy eating old-fashioned foods. Many others prefer trendy foods. Apparently people have wanted to eat “modern” foods for a long time. According to this advertisement, the modern way to serve tea is with lemon instead of cream – which suggests that the ad copy writer believed that promoting modern food combinations was a winning strategy for an ad campaign.
A Hundred Years Ago 
Even then, people wanted to be trendy. I have to say, I like what I like.
Tea needs lemon.
Good PR campaign! People do want to be in the know!
100 years later and I still would rather have cream. How out of date am I?
You are not at all out of date if you were in England or any of the countries once colonized by the British Empire. I learned to love milk in my tea through Indian chai, South African rooibos, and English tea. Lemon may go fine in iced tea, but it dilutes the tea taste in hot tea and changes the flavor. Milk (or cream) merely smoothes the tannins.
My thoughts exactly.
I love lemon in my tea! (Since I am lactose intolerant cream wouldn’t work anyway…)
I’ve never tried cream in my tea.. afraid I’ll ruin my tea, besides I love lemon with it’s less calorie input in my tea. I’ll save my cream for coffee as I’m sure the cream has less calories in coffee.😁
What a fun ad! Marketing is still getting us to try something new today!
I wonder what the lemon enthusiasts of those days would have thought of our peach tea?
Sunkist is still a brand associated with citrus fruit and juices! I like lemon but not tea – a homemade lemonade is hard to beat…
Just the word lemon waters my mouth and sunkist is one of the best made-up words ever – but I like cream sometimes, lemon sometimes. They are different animals.
Cream is out of date? Yikes! I’ll let Sunkist break it to the Brits! 🙂
It was big news when fresh citrus could be had all over the country. Now they had to encourage people to use it, I guess.
Honestly, until I discovered your blog, I didn’t realize how many of the dishes I enjoy today were around 100 years ago!
My grandmother, who was a young woman in 1920, always served our tea with cream. I still drink it that way.
I’ve only had lemon tea in the Far East, it is delicious cold. I have oat milk in my tea…delicious.xxx