This is a tradition that has ‘British’ written all over it. It features a wonderful selection of light and tasty eats, with warm scones, home-made jams and classic clotted cream dominating the show. Afternoon tea, like the savoury course, is a way of eating that is completely unique to Britain. There are a number of reasons for its ‘invention’.
The first is the introduction to Britain of the new drink, tea, in the late sixteenth century. Catherine of Braganza, the wife of King Charles II, is said to have been very enthusiastic about tea-drinking. Tea then was mostly green tea from China and, during the next 200 years or so, it was to take over in popularity from home-brewed ale and the other imported drinks, coffee and chocolate. At first, tea was a drink for the rich, as the leaves were not cheap (one reason for all the rather expensive tea accessories – silver teapots, caddy spoons, sugar tongs and so on). It was drunk at breakfast, and after dinner, and later was the drink of choice at the new pleasure- or tea-gardens which opened in and around London (most famously at Vauxhall, Ranelagh and Marylebone) in the late eighteenth century. It wasn’t until the mid nineteenth century, when it was planted in India and later Ceylon (Sri Lanka), that tea, by now usually black, became cheaper and more available to all. Some people were horrified by the amount of tea drunk by all classes, and considered it a harmful drug. A commentator in the late 1750s wrote: ‘When will this evil stop? ... Your very Chambermaids have lost their bloom, I suppose by sipping tea.’ It is actually thought that milk began to be put in tea in order to dilute the effects of tea and its tannin. However, tea-drinking had by now become the national habit – and it’s still with us.
