I think that it is interesting that the English, until fairly recent times, did not sell cups and saucers with a dinner set. They sold these separately as a tea or coffee set. People did not necessarily buy tea or coffee sets to match their dinner sets. Also, often the tea sets had what they called "trios". Trios consist of a teacup, coffee cup and one saucer. This is because they never served tea and coffee at the same meal. They did not need two sets of saucers. Ceramics were expensive in Georgian and Victorian England. One saucer was used for both tea and coffee. Breakfast had tea, lunch had tea (more than likely), tea time had tea, and dinner had coffee. A tea set would have trios, an equal number of tea plates, one or more large tea plates, a creamer, sugar, a teapot and a coffee pot. Over the years, these sets have been broken up.

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