Reflections on a Simple Past | 03. The Art of Afternoon Tea

Quintessential afternoons, crusts off, thinly sliced, and a sacred institution which might just be making a comeback.

Jun 02, 2024

In this series, I look back at some of the people, places and things which have so richly influenced and inspired my love of all things simple.

There can be fewer things more English than tea. Afternoon tea, as it is now called, seems to somehow epitomise everything there is about being English; the tea, the china, the cakes, sandwiches, and scones. It is refined, quintessential, and oozing with delicious nostalgia.

As a child, I was brought up in a world of tea, the meal for which we stopped at about 4pm. Everything stops for tea. Nowadays, we have lunch, and then rush about almost constantly until it’s time for supper…or dinner, or tea…whatever you call it, which we eat at about 7pm. In the old days of tea, everything stopped, the busy afternoon was punctuated by a short refreshment break where we might sit down, chat, and relax, if only for a moment. I confess that my working schedule is still built around that half-hour at 4pm when we stop for tea and cake, if you like, time to refuel.

Clarissa Dickson-Wright, one half of the much-missed Two Fat Ladies, writes:

‘Tea comes in all shapes and sizes: there is the massive high tea, which is really supper…Then there is tea served with dainty sandwiches and gooey cakes in an English country garden with silver teapot on a silver tray, damask napkins and the plink of tennis balls off-stage. I feel sorry for people who never set foot out of London and so do not realise that this world still exists.’

We used to invite people to tea, and made it a great occasion. When were you lasted invited out to tea?

Granny recorded in her diary that she was having tea when my parents arrived to tell her they were expecting me. For Granny, tea was sacred. At 4pm she always got up to put the kettle on, to lay the tea tray - Johnson’s Greydawn - and to butter the bread. In earlier years we were treated to windmill loaf, a delightful fruit loaf with nibbed sugar on the top, though in latter years, it was sliced and buttered ‘submarine’ rolls with jam. She never really went into for scones, but sometimes Scotch pancakes appeared on the table.

Bread, butter and jam was always followed Mr Kipling’s Bakewell Tart. This was in the days when they came as one large tart, and before they had half an inch of icing and a cherry on the top. In later years, this was replaced by a variety of cakes: Battenberg, ginger, chocolate etc. She never baked herself, but as I got older and started to bake, she enjoyed the cakes and brownies which we arrived with, even if, as someone who’d lived through the war, she was perpetually horrified at the number of eggs they contained. When I was younger I would kneel down with her at the coffee table to eat my tea. Cups and saucers were a must, and there were endless refills of the teapot until we could drink no more.

Of course, tea, now called afternoon tea, is a rather fancy affair offered in hotels, garden centres, and restaurants. The English’s love for tea has, in some ways, been reborn for the 21st century to the extent that people now have afternoon tea for their hen parties. Indeed, we had afternoon tea after we got married. There are no shortage of people of all ages and nationalities willing to queue for a table at Bettys tearooms in Yorkshire. I can’t help but think that still, we crave that moment of stillness and refreshment mid-afternoon, where somehow, we can simply sit, enjoy each other’s company, and eat and drink in the most civilised way.

I wonder if we ever break free from the 9-5, a working schedule born of the Industrial Revolution, and now, in my view, completely outdated, whether tea as a meal might make a comeback? Perhaps, as we seek the simple pleasures once more, cricket on the village green, peaceful gardens surrounded by the best in cottage garden plants, and a slowness which befits a life lived in fulfilment of that which we enjoy most, there is a place for that most sacred of meals again. I’ll leave the last word to Clarissa:

‘For me, a day watching cricket with wives and girlfriends bringing cakes and sandwiches embodies a lot that is still good about England. They have ruined tea at the Ritz, cream teas too often come with artificial cream out of a spray can, and sandwiches come too thickly cut, with the crusts left on.’

Perhaps, in our quest for a life lived slowly and simply, once again, everything will stop for tea.

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