Histories of Egyptology often focus on the excavation site, site report, or the museum when talking about important places in the development of the discipline.

Tea on the terrace focuses instead on the hotels Egyptologists stayed in before going out to excavate, and after they returned, as major sites of discipline-building activities. Here they met friends and colleagues, drank tea, ate meals and talked with one another. Throughout their time together, they built the discipline of Egyptology in an exclusive space — European-run Egyptian hotels.