Green’s Dictionary of Slang

scandal-broth n.

tea.

[1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 75: Thus they take a sip of tea, then for a draught or two of scandal to digest it].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1810		Covent Gdn Jrnl II 811: The whole city is in confusion about him; [...] the number of his wives, above all, of his children, are the only subjects which go down with the citizen’s wives over their scandal-broth.
1821		R. Waln Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 27: ‘A frequenter of hot-water conventicles’—‘A drinker of scandal-broth’.
1822		Scots. Mag. May 638/2: My truely, our drap scandal water may weel compare wi' his pease-brosc.
1828		M. William-Carr Dial. of Craven 100: SCANDAL-BROTH, A sarcastic name for tea.
1838		Belfast News Letter 14 Aug. 2/4: It will also require no ordinary influence to keep the ‘daughters of Erin’ from the ‘scandal broth’ as the London coves designate it.
1840		Citizen (Dublin) Apr. 406/1: I [...] always prefer something more substantial to that wishey-washey tea — nasty scandal-broth, only fit for women.
1841		Flash (NY) 26 Sept. n.p.: I hate their dirty scandal-broth / Of steaming hot Bohea.
1843		R. Hill Village Dialogues 27: While Madam Toogood was cracking and boasting away all the time she was drinking scandal broth, as you call it.
1847		Stamford Mercury (Lincs) 12 Feb. 4/6: Discussing the different merits and demerits of her sex over a dish of tea, also ‘scandal broth’.
1853		(ref. to 1824) Portsmouth Times 15 Oct. 8/2: In June 1824 the Thetis [...] which the haters of the newly-introduced scandal-broth nicknamed the ‘old tea-chest’ sailed from Jamaica to China.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 76: scandal soup Tea.
1860		Westmorland Gaz. 28 Jan. 6/3: Yes, My Christian Friends, Tea, Bohea, or Scandal Broth, by whichever name.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 221: SCANDAL-WATER, tea.
1869		Cheshire Obs. 26 June 8: One gentleman [...] waanted the rum to be perfect; he always put that liquid into his ‘scandal soup’.
1873		Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1864].
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 7: Scandal-water - Tea, from old maid’s tea parties.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. [as 1882].
1895		Manchester Times 18 Jan. 5/7: ‘Scandal broth,’ tea.
1928		Eve. Teleg. 6 Mar. 3/3: Scandal broth is tea; from the female practise of talking scandal at afternoon tea.
1936		H.W. Bentley ‘Linguistic Concoctions of the Soda Jerker’ in AS XI:1 44: SCANDAL SOUP. Tea.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 177: scandal soup (camp) tea as a gossip’s refreshment.