Every year I organise an afternoon tea party for my girlies… very quintessentially British!! This year’s tea fete was attended by Natalie, Lea, Theresa, Maria & Erika. Needless to mention, I served my freshly baked little cupcakes with lychees and rose cream, as well as cucumber sandwiches, smoked salmon and capers sandwiches, macaroons (in Switzerland, we have the equivalent called Luxemburgli- the best ones are from Sprungli), and some mini carrot cake bites and chestnut millefeuille, all served on a tiered stand. Of course, no tea party is complete without homemade scones served with raspberry jam (from Laura’s kitchen) and clotted cream. I was pretty lucky to find clotted cream from Devon in Globus.
Do you know the story behind the traditional tea party? Here it is….
Afternoon tea, that most quintessential of English customs is, perhaps surprisingly, a relatively new tradition. Whilst the custom of drinking tea dates back to the third millennium BC in China and was popularised in England during the 1660s by King Charles II and his wife the Portuguese Infanta Catherine de Braganza, it was not until the mid 17th century that the concept of ‘afternoon tea’ first appeared.
Afternoon tea was introduced in England by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in the year 1840. The Duchess would become hungry around four o'clock in the afternoon. The evening meal in her household was served fashionably late at eight o'clock, thus leaving a long period of time between lunch and dinner. The Duchess asked that a tray of tea, bread and butter (some time earlier, the Earl of Sandwich had had the idea of putting a filling between two slices of bread) and cake be brought to her room at Woburn Abbey during the late afternoon. This became a habit of hers and she began inviting friends to join her.
This pause for tea became a fashionable social event. During the 1880's upper-class and society women would change into long gowns, gloves and hats for their afternoon tea which was usually served in the drawing room between four and five o'clock.
Traditional afternoon tea consists of a selection of dainty sandwiches (including of course thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches), scones served with clotted cream and preserves. Cakes and pastries are also served. Tea grown in India or Ceylon is poured from silver tea pots into delicate bone china cups.
Nowadays however, in the average suburban home, afternoon tea is likely to be just a biscuit or small cake and a mug of tea, usually produced using a teabag. Sacrilege! Occasionally you will see hotels serving a ‘high tea'. Traditionally, the upper classes would serve a ‘low' or ‘afternoon' tea around four o'clock, just before the fashionable promenade in Hyde Park. The middle and lower classes would have a more substantial ‘high' tea later in the day, at five or six o'clock, in place of a late dinner. The names derive from the height of the tables on which the meals are served, high tea being served at the dinner table.
To experience the best of the afternoon tea tradition, indulge yourself with a trip to one of London's finest hotels or visit a quaint tearoom in the west country. The Devonshire Cream Tea is famous worldwide and consists of scones, strawberry jam and the vital ingredient, Devon clotted cream, as well as cups of hot sweet tea served in china teacups. Many of the other counties in England's west country also claim the best cream teas: Dorset, Cornwall and Somerset.
There are a wide selection of hotels in London offering the quintessential afternoon tea experience . Hotels offering traditional afternoon tea include the Berkeley (my favourite), Claridges, the Dorchester, the Lanesborough, the Ritz and the Savoy, as well as Harrods , the Wolseley and Fortnum and Mason.
