Trifter

According to statistics here in the UK, traditional afternoon tea is once again becoming popular and is slowly overtaking our recent passion for the US style coffee houses.

Could this be down to the fact that, in the current depressing times, we want to take a step back and, just for while, indulge in a little bit of fantasy – go back to a much slower pace of life?

Or maybe it’s due to a need to obtain value for money and at the same time, reduce stress levels due to our hectic lifestyles? Although I have now worked from home for five years, I can remember well my days working for a law firm in the city of Norwich, England. Lunch entailed queuing up with the “Stepford” office workers to grab an extremely expensive half-filled and unsatisfying sandwich and a cup of “plastic” coffee and then consuming said lunch in a stressful, packed sandwich bar before returning to an even more stressful office.

And, on occasions, I indulged in a glass or two of white wine with a burger and fries with friends, eaten in a packed wine bar and battling to chat to my pals above loud, so-called background music. How much better it would have been if I could have spent my lunch hour sitting with friends in a quiet tea room and enjoying a leisurely and filling plate of sandwiches and cakes served with a pot of tea sipped from a bone china cup, and paying out roughly the same amount of money for the privilege.

Unfortunately, five years ago, English tea rooms were few and far between but, according to recent research, they are making a come back and it’s been recorded that across the country the partaking of afternoon tea has increased by 25% to 50% in the last year or so and more and more of the younger generation are now taking “time out” to enjoy the experience with their friends, rather than hang around busy wine bars and sandwich bars.

Our English afternoon teas became extremely popular in Victorian times but sadly slowly lost their appeal from the late 1940s onwards until they became almost an extinct species during the “yuppy” era in the 1980s. They remained slightly more successful in some our smaller coastal resorts and the more popular English villages as tourists enjoyed the atmosphere with all it entailed – linen tablecloths, silver tea service, bone china crockery and cake plates with doilies.

The taking of afternoon tea was supposedly introduced by Anna, Duchess of Bedford in the mid 19th century. Dinner was usually served quite late in the evening so she found that by mid afternoon she was starting to feel a little peckish and got into the habit of requesting her servants to bring her a pot of tea and bread and butter to keep her going until dinner.

She then began inviting her friends round and, during the summer months, she and her aristocratic lady friends would follow this repast with a quick turn round the grounds of Woburn, the family home. And so it escalated, eventually reaching society circles in London where it became extremely fashionable to take afternoon tea with one’s friends in the drawing room before an evening sojourn in Hyde Park.

Afternoon tea quickly expanded from bread and butter and a pot of tea to include scones filled with jam and cream, and a selection of fancies served on tiered cake plates, and this is what most people now expect.

As far as sandwiches are concerned, I think the majority of us learned in history classes that this was introduced to England by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich back in the mid to late 18th century. He was so addicted to gambling that, in order to prevent the need to leave the card table for sustenance, he requested servants to bring him some cooked meat between two slices of bread. Poor old John was somewhat of a “black sheep” in his family.

He was granted the status of First Lord of the Admiralty of the Royal Navy but became extremely unpopular when it was discovered his administration skills were not all they should be – stores were stolen, ships that were unseaworthy and inadequately equipped were sent into battle and, to top it all, his mistress Martha Ray (a singer), who bore him several illegitimate children, was murdered by a rejected suitor. Add to this his proclivity for gambling and one can see why he wasn’t top of the “most respected aristocrats” league!