Afternoon tea


A cup of tea


Cornish cream tea in Boscastle, although prepared in the Devonshire Method.
Afternoon tea traditionally known as low tea, is a light meal snack typically eaten between 2pm and 5pm. The custom of drinking tea originated in England when Catherine of Bragança married Charles II in 1661 and brought the practice of drinking tea in the afternoon with her from Portugal.[citation needed] Various places that belonged to the former British Empire also have such a meal. However, changes in social customs and working hours mean that most Britons will rarely take afternoon tea, if at all.[citation needed]
Traditionally, loose tea is brewed in a teapot and served in teacups with milk and sugar. This is accompanied by sandwiches (customarily cucumber, egg and cress, fish paste, ham, and smoked salmon), scones (with clotted cream and jam, see cream tea) and usually cakes and pastries (such as Battenberg, fruit cake or Victoria sponge). In hotels and tea shops the food is often served on a tiered stand; there may be no sandwiches, but bread or scones with butter or margarine and optional jam or other spread, or toast, muffins or crumpets.[1][2][3]
Nowadays, a formal afternoon tea is usually taken as a treat in a hotel, café or tea shop. In everyday life, many Britons take a much simpler refreshment consisting of tea and biscuits at teatime.[citation needed]
While living in Woburn Abbey, Anna Maria Russell, Duchess of Bedford, is credited as the first person to have transformed afternoon tea in England into a late-afternoon meal rather than a simple refreshment.[4]
Isabella Beeton describes afternoon teas of various kinds: the old-fashioned tea, the at-home tea, the family tea and the high tea and provides menus.[5]
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High tea
High tea (also known as meat tea[6]) is an early evening meal, typically eaten between 5pm and 7pm. It is now largely followed by a later lighter evening meal.
High tea would usually consist of cold meats, eggs or fish, cakes and sandwiches.
In its origin, the term “high tea” was used as a way to distinguish it from “low tea” or afternoon tea. The words 'low' and 'high' refer to the tables from which either tea meal was eaten. Low tea was served in a sitting room where low tables (like a coffee table) were placed near sofas or chairs generally. The word high referred to a table, this one on a dining room table, and it would be loaded with substantial dinner dishes - meats, cheese, breads, perhaps the classic shepherd's pie or steak and kidney pie.