Although it is not known whether Tissot visited London in the 1860s, the French artist had already oriented his subjects and style to suit British taste by the time he moved there in 1871. He immediately immersed himself in the London scene, creating work for Vanity Fair and genre paintings with the Thames as backdrop. Hoping to bank on the success of his pictures peopled with fancifully costumed "Incroyables" and "Merveilleuses," he painted several anecdotal canvases set in Georgian London. Tea is a repetition of the left-hand portion of one of his most famous London scenes, Bad News (National Museum of Wales), which shows a young ship's captain and his girlfriend absorbing the news of his imminent departure while a companion prepares tea.

For this variant of Bad News Tissot brought his astounding technique to new heights. He reveled in the variety of surfaces—brilliant silver, polished mahogany, matte silk, and flawless skin—and in the complex play of patterns—venetian blinds, slotted shutters, striped silk, and the masts and rigging of the ships at port. Bad News shows a bend of the Thames through the tavern windows, while Tea displays the dense London cityscape. Tissot's friend Edgar Degas owned a pencil study for this picture.