Tea roses versus Hybrid Teas

Teas and Hybrid Teas, sound similar, right? So what is the big deal if you just drop the word Hybrid and shorten everything to Tea?
Tea roses are in the old garden roses group. One of the roses that is considered an early tea rose is 'Park's yellow tea scented China Rose' and is from 1824.  Another early tea, which sometimes lays claim to the " first" tea rose, is 'Adam' from 1838. There are claims that the name Tea rose came from either the scent of the flowers or that the roses were smuggled out of China/India in chests holding tea.
 Several Tea roses have what is called a weak neck, which often causes the flowers to nod. Not all tea roses have weak necks, but tall tea roses with weak necks have an advantage. When the plant is climbing on a tree or arbor, or is allowed to grow tall, the flowers are looking at you.

Safrano from 1839

Safrano, showing the type of flower opening that would soon become popular and sought after.

Hybrid Teas are the first class in which the modern garden roses would become a class. The "first" Hybrid Tea was ' La France' in 1867, which resulted from using a tea rose as the seed parent, or mom, and a hybrid perpetual as the pollen parent, or dad. ( In plants the cross is shown as mom X dad) Generally Hybrid Teas were bred with aim to have large pointed buds that opened in a neat spiral. For the most part roses from the florist are generally Hybrid Teas. Hybrid Teas are often pruned short every year and encouraged to produce stems to put in vases.

Sutter's Gold a Hybrid Tea from 1950

So what is the big deal? If you want stiff formal roses for vases then you want a Hybrid Tea. If you want a plant that looks natural looking down from above, or a loose floppy flower arrangement then you want Tea roses.