Tea Time at the Abbey

Afternoon Tea, High Tea, and a Tea Party – is there a difference? We can thank Anna, the Duchess of Beadford for introducing afternoon tea early in the nineteenth century. Back in the mid-1800s, it was fashionable to serve dinner at 8 o’clock in the evening. To help fill the gap between luncheon and dinner, the Duchess came up with the idea of tea and a few small sandwiches or tarts to help pass the time. This was served around 4 o’clock and intended to hold you over till dinner.

About this same time in history Britain was embracing the industrial revolution and the working class began to work on a more regulated time schedule. Workers came home from a long hard day in factories and wanted a full meal with a pot of tea.

Afternoon Tea was served on low tables, maybe with a tea cart on the side. Guests usually sat on low parlor chairs or relaxed on garden furniture. The workers tea was served at a regular dinning table with high-back dinning chairs thus high tea. The working class households still call their evening meal “tea.”

A Tea Party is what little girls play with their dolls, friends and mommy or daddy. I know there is one more type of tea party on the horizon but I am not going to touch that one in this story.

Times have changed, habits and social interaction schedules have drifted. Dinner is now called supper in some parts of the country. Some travelers have embraced the idea of having tea and of course the hotels and commercial establishments are quick to step in and fill that need. Now places in the United States that serve tea mostly serve it from 4 to 5 p.m., but don’t let it go too late, because that would interfere with the cocktail hour.

In keeping with our quest to embrace as much of the feeling of “Downton Abbey,” my friends and I chose to have Afternoon Tea this week. Each was charged to prepare a selection of small crust-less sandwiches or other appropriate sweets. We made strong tea and served it with lemon, sugar and milk. Our historian, Bonnie, came up with the information that the proper order to dress your tea is sugar first, then lemon and milk last. This is so you get it the desired color and taste. We chose a suitable setting for our tea and enjoyed everyone’s offerings of tea sandwiches. We then retired to the TV and enjoyed another episode of “Downton Abbey.”

These recent cold afternoons have left a great opportunity to think about a nice cup of tea – nothing so fancy as described above. Just boil some water in the kettle or microwave, pop in a tea bag and wait for the magic. A couple of cookies will round out your impromptu tea service. You may have some Girl Scout Cookies on hand as they are “in season” this time of year.

A few tricks for making fancy sandwiches are first selecting sandwich-style bread. Trim the crust spread with any filling; cut the sandwiches into triangles or squares. Choose both wheat and white bread and mix to create a ribbon effect. For more artistic designs, cut the crust away and roll the bread flat before assembling. Your can then cut with a cookie cutter a simple round, half moon or other simple design you might have on hand.

I chose two simple fillings. One was egg salad, made of grated hard-boiled egg, a small amount of mayonnaise, softened butter, salt, pepper, and curry to taste. This was spread on an open-face sandwich cut as a triangle. Another simple spread was goat cheese with watercress spread on cut bread rounds topped and cut in half to form half moons. Let your imagination run wild on this.

Next week our little group plans to have dessert.  

I hope you are enjoying our efforts to share life across the pond. Let me know at PatsChat@livingston.net.