British ‘teatime’ is a very complicated business. Sometimes there isn’t even any tea

By Will Noble, CNN

London (CNN) — “Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea,” wrote Henry James in “The Portrait of a Lady.” “Teatime” is one of those quintessential English phrases that stirs up images of steaming silverware pots being ferried across vast lawns and dished up to characters straight out of “Downton Abbey,” politely nattering behind towering tiers of delicate gateaux and finger sandwiches.

But there is more to teatime than cucumber sandwiches with “Downton’s” Dowager Countess of Grantham, and pots of tea on the ceiling with giggling uncles in “Mary Poppins.” This is a complex beast, awash with finicky rituals, multiple iterations and evolving etymology. Time, then, to put on a brew and drink it all in.

Peckish aristocrat sparks a craze

It began with a rumbling stomach, or so the story goes. One afternoon in 1840, at around 4 p.m. Anna Russell, the duchess of Bedford, complained of a “sinking feeling,” according to the British Museum. She was hungry — and there were still four hours to go until dinner time. Unwilling to wait it out, the peckish aristocrat requested her maid embellish her usual pot of tea with a scattering of snacks.

What these were exactly is sadly undocumented, but perhaps consisted of a little bread, butter, jam and biscuits. Afternoon tea had arrived.

Tea, the drink, had enjoyed overnight success in England too. When Catherine of Braganza came over from Portugal in 1662 in her new role as queen of England, she brought with her the daily habit of taking tea. Until then, the drink had only been taken as a medicine in England, but with Catherine’s seal of approval, it swiftly became a quaffable fashion accessory for the moneyed classes. Two centuries on, Anna Russell had raised the stakes for teatime. Whatever the original snacks had been, they were soon augmented into a diverse roll call of sweet and savory morsels. Sandwiches — cut fussily into fluffy fingers — were filled with tomato, asparagus, shrimp, caviar or even oysters. Cake varieties included seed, Russian walnut, Dundee, currant buns, Swiss rolls, Battenberg and macarons. Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel “Rebecca” captures the delicious vagaries of the afternoon tea:

From the tasty throng, favorites emerged. One preferred sandwich filling was cucumber — often peeled, sliced thinly and accompanied by cream cheese. Though cucumbers didn’t necessarily make the most thrilling of sandwich fillings, they were a status symbol. If you could grow cucumbers, it meant you could afford an expensive glass hothouse. In Oscar Wilde’s farcical 1895 play “The Importance of Being Earnest,” cucumber sandwiches are name-checked no fewer than five times.

Afternoon tea also gained the royal seal of approval from Queen Victoria. Her favorite strawberry jam and buttercream-filled cake was later renamed in her honor. The “Victoria sponge” remains another darling of the afternoon tea.

Victoria sponge cakes were rendered light and fluffy by the addition of newfangled single-action baking powder, which arrived in 1843, courtesy of the chemist and food manufacturer Alfred Bird. It was Bird’s baking powder, and another, even more revolutionary invention, namely the steam train, that served to popularize another stalwart of the afternoon tea: the scone.

The “West Country” cream tea is said to have originated at Devon’s Tavistock Abbey; workers restoring the damaged abbey after it was attacked by Vikings in 997 C.E. were rewarded by Ordulf, Earl of Devon, with servings of bread, clotted cream (an extra thick and unctuous full-fat cream), and strawberry preserve. (You might argue that Ordulf had beaten Anna Russell to the afternoon tea by some centuries.)

Over time, bread made way for scones: plump, handheld cakes made with self-raising flour, butter, salt, and sugar, baked to a spongy consistency then split in two and heaped with the aforementioned jam and cream.

Nineteenth-century baking powder gave them a newfound fluffiness, and the railways brought vacationers to the sublime landscapes of southwest England, where locals were all too happy to sell their cream teas to tourists. The railways, of course, worked both ways, and by 1920 Rodda’s — which is still the leading manufacturer of clotted cream — was taking hefty orders from luxury London department stores Harrods and Fortnum & Mason. By this time, the cream tea and afternoon tea had already begun to fuse.

Teatime hits the streets

Afternoon tea was about more than simply revitalizing oneself. It was a way to tune into the latest gossip, and to galvanize your social standing. As such, rules and rituals came thick and fast.

Domestic luminaries like the best-selling writer Mrs Beeton dished out advice on how to brew tea properly — “There is very little art in making good tea,” she suggested, before cascading out another 600 words on the process.

Other books, such as Lady Constance Howard’s unashamedly prescriptive “Etiquette: What To Do and How To Do It” warned that, “Ladies intending to eat ice, cake, bread, etc. should take off their gloves, but gloves can stay on if one is only drinking without eating.”

Special teaware was procured, and neatly scribed invitations were sent out. Female guests arrived in their finest lace-trimmed tea gowns, while men sipped from moustache cups to keep their whiskers dry. While Asia already had centuries-old tea ceremonies, the Brits were now steadily choreographing their own protocols.

Before long, afternoon tea had spilled out from the parlors of the aristocracy into the fashionable streets of London. The Langham Hotel claims to have been the first to offer afternoon tea to the public in its opulent Palm Court, in 1865. “In its earliest days, afternoon tea was a simple affair — typically just a few finger sandwiches and a sweet treat or two, designed to tide ladies over between lunch and dinner,” says Andrew Gravett, the Langham’s executive pastry chef.

Other hotels followed suit. Having opened in 1906, The Ritz got straight to work serving afternoon tea in its own Palm Court. In “The Ritz London Book of Afternoon Tea,” Helen Simpson sets the scene: “Takers of tea perch on rose-colored Louis XVI chairs at marble tables, sipping their steaming cups of Darjeeling or Earl Grey, while the belle époque nymphs look on in Olympian disdain.” There was a sense that teatime should be an occasion. Tea dances — or “thé dansants” for those being ostentatiously French about it — fused together the spectacle and romance of ballroom dancing with a nice cup of tea.

The same year that the Langham served its first afternoon tea, literature’s most (in)famous tea party was committed to paper. In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Lewis Carroll takes great delight in lambasting the rituals of an English afternoon tea — turning the whole affair into a surreal, never-ending carry-on. As the Mad Hatter sighs, “It’s always teatime.” The book secured “teatime” as a calling card of the British way of life, albeit in cosmically coruscating fashion.

Yet already the very definition of “teatime” was in flux. While the middle classes quickly adopted their own afternoon teas (in the sport of cricket, the tea break became an integral part of the game, players pausing for cups of tea and slices of cake), the working classes came up with their own spin on the afternoon tea — one which would apply an altogether different meaning to teatime.

The lowdown on high tea

It’s not just the lords and ladies who are depicted nibbling on scones and sipping lapsang souchong in “Downton Abbey;” down in the bowels of the manor, the servants gather for a less lavish feast, one known as “high tea.”

While tea, the drink, had started out as an impossibly expensive luxury for the English, 1784’s Commutation Act slashed import tax on tea leaves from 119% to 12.5%, making the beverage more accessible, if still on the pricey side. As Swedish writer Erik Geijer claimed in 1809, “Next to water, tea is the Englishman’s proper element. All classes consume it.”

The growing affordability of tea coincided with the Industrial Revolution, which created a slew of new jobs in factories and the construction industry, particularly by the Victorian age. “Some factory owners thought that an afternoon refreshment could increase productivity; the stimulants in tea, accompanied by sugary snacks, could give their workers energy to last out the day’s work,” writes Gillian Perry in “Please Pass the Scones.” While the upper classes treated tea as a way to brag, workers genuinely enjoyed it as a fortifying drink during what became known as their “tea break.”

But that wasn’t the only working man’s riff on the afternoon tea. The high tea — so called because it was served on dinner tables, as opposed to low-level tea tables, and also because it was consumed during the late, or “high” point of the afternoon — became a well earned respite for Victorian workers after a back-breaking day’s toil. Alongside steaming cups (or often mugs) of tea, robust delicacies were served: anything from parsimonious slices of buttered bread, through to cheese, pork pies and hams. In Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” the narrator, Pip, recalls a “haystack of buttered toast” and the brewing of “such a jorum of tea, that the pig in the back premises became strongly excited.”

High tea found a foothold in the north of England, where many heavy industries and coal mines were situated, although it was enjoyed throughout the country: Thomas Unwins’ painting, “Living off the Fat of the Land, A Country Feast,” portrays a clamorous scene of rustic bliss in which hunks of bread, meat and cheese are devoured, and tea is heartily slurped — one woman doing so from a saucer.

Just as the higher echelons of Victorian, and then Edwardian, society stepped out to places like the Langham and the Ritz for afternoon tea, so “teashops” arrived on the scene for everyone else. In 1864 the Aerated Bread Company (ABC) opened its first tearooms, serving an affordable menu that combined the delights of afternoon tea with sturdier, high tea fare such as cold meats and pies.

But while afternoon tea was a showy stopgap before dinner was served later on in the day, the high tea was dinner. This explains why many English folk (particularly those in the north) still refer to dinner as “tea” — whether that’s a roast dinner, a curry or a “chippy tea.”

Teatime’s golden age

The afternoon tea waned during the war years with the nation under rationing, but has since rallied. The present day might even be the best time for tea since its inception. The Langham and The Ritz continue to serve afternoon tea, as does almost every other respectable hotel across the UK. While the class boundaries surrounding afternoon tea have been stripped away, it remains a treat. “Afternoon tea is the perfect way to mark life’s special occasions: birthdays, anniversaries, proposals,” says Gravett, the Langham’s pastry chef. “It strikes a beautiful balance: A delicious dining experience set in often lavish surroundings, with just enough theater and ceremony to make every guest feel like royalty, if only for a couple of hours.”

Afternoon tea was always about the optics to some extent — flaunting what you had to your fellow grandees — but it now has a far greater audience. “With the rise of social media, the visual presentation of afternoon tea has taken on far greater importance than ever before,” says Gravett. There are now Sherlock Holmes-themed afternoon teas and Shakespeare afternoon teas; Indian afternoon teas and sushi afternoon teas. There are afternoon teas on double-decker buses, steam trains and British Airways planes.
And, of course, there are “Alice in Wonderland” afternoon teas — lots of them.

The genre grows curiouser and curiouser by the day. Indeed, there’s an entire market for themed afternoon teas for kids: Paddington, Peppa Pig, “Jurassic” (complete with steaming volcano). Warner Bros. Studios (owned by the same parent company as CNN) offers a Harry Potter-themed tea with “Dumbledore’s sherbet lemon macaron” and an edible Golden Snitch. London’s Science Museum’s afternoon tea gets children slurping jelly from petri dishes and scooping “soil” into their mouths.

Then there are the boozy teas. A “Winemakers Afternoon Tea” at 28°-50° in London’s Marylebone switches the Ceylon for Chianti. There are “teas” that ply you with cocktails, tequila, whiskey or Champagne. Even that Science Museum afternoon tea invites kids to create their own fizzy drinks.
With many afternoon teas today, the tea itself is entirely optional.

The “traditional” afternoon tea remains king, of course, but even here, the line has been blurred between this, the cream tea and the high tea. It’s not uncommon for an afternoon tea to feature, say, cucumber sandwiches, scones with clotted cream, and savory pies. Anna Russell would barely recognize it — although you suppose she’d still merrily tuck in.

A teatime glossary

Tea: The hot beverage brewed from the dried leaves of the tea plant, indigenous to China and India (think assam and darjeeling). Tea was popularized in England in the 17th century among the monied classes, and by the 19th century had become mainstream. Today, almost three-quarters of Brits drink at least one cup of tea per day.

Afternoon tea: Originally a dainty array of snacks for the upper classes, afternoon tea traditionally features a selection of sandwiches and cakes, served on a tiered platter with a pot of tea. The variations are now endless, and afternoon tea is a fixture of hotels, restaurants and cafes across the country. No longer reserved for the aristocracy, it often comes with a steep price tag, and is enjoyed on special occasions.

Cream tea: An afternoon tea which consists specifically of sweet scones (traditionally plain or with currants), jam and clotted cream. Today, cream teas are served up and down the country, but they have their roots in the southwest regions of Cornwall and Devon, which are renowned for their production of superlative cream. An ongoing debate rages over whether the cream should go on the scone first (the Devon way) or second (Cornwall). The late Queen Elizabeth II went with jam on top, the Cornish way.

High tea: Originally the less dainty, working-class riff on afternoon tea, enjoyed by laborers. While high tea for the poorest might have simply involved drinking tea with slices of bread, in less straitened high teas, pretty much anything might be on the table: hams, cheese, pies, cakes. The high tea has evolved over the years into dinner (still referred to by some as “tea”), though various components of a high tea can now be found worked into high-end afternoon teas.

Low tea: Another term for “afternoon tea,” though not one you see used much.

Tea break: Shorter affairs than the pomp and circumstance of afternoon tea, tea breaks are intervals of up to 15 minutes that break up the working day, and involve a cup of tea with a biscuit. The tea break is interchangeable with the “coffee break’ or “elevenses,” so called because it often takes place at around 11 a.m.

Teatime: A term which can be interpreted in various ways. “Teatime” might refer to a tea break or teatime during a cricket match. Yet because of the high tea, it can also translate as “dinner time.” As such, various “teatimes” across Britain might not have the faintest sniff of a scone, cucumber sandwich — or indeed, a cup of tea.

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