Afternoon tea

What it is

Tea as a meal names a few different spreads. Nineteenth-century household writers set out menus for a family tea, a tea for visitors, an old-fashioned tea and high tea. Teatime, the hour, runs from the middle of the afternoon into the early evening. In Britain and Australasia plenty of people still call their main evening meal tea rather than dinner or supper, and the word shifts with social class. A tea break is something else again: a pause at work for a cup of tea or another drink. The afternoon version is sometimes named low tea, to set it apart from the heavier high tea of the evening.

How it began

Tea drunk in the afternoon may go back to the late 1600s. Tea eaten as a meal is later, usually placed in the late 18th or early 19th century. Writers give a simple reason: dinner, the main meal, drifted from midday to evening, leaving a long gap in the afternoon. Some early references treat afternoon tea as a social gathering, among them an etiquette book by Jonathan Swift from 1738. In 1804 the French writer Grimod de La Reynière described afternoon tea in Switzerland. By 1900, tea as a meal was settled among every class in Britain.

At the table

Thin bread and butter, small sandwiches cut without crusts and pressed flat, and cakes make up the usual spread. Cucumber is the classic filling, with egg and cress alongside it. Scones arrive with clotted cream and jam, as they do at a cream tea. Many hosts set a tiered stand in the middle of the table: sandwiches on the lowest plate, scones in the centre, then small sweet cakes and petit fours on top. Black tea is poured, perhaps Darjeeling, Assam, Earl Grey or Ceylon, with milk, or lemon when the tea is Chinese or Russian in style. Biscuits rarely appear.

Tea rooms and change

Public places that served tea as a meal were once common across Britain, and their numbers fell after the Second World War. The first is said to have opened in Glasgow in the 1880s, run by the tea merchant Stuart Cranston. His sister Catherine later ran a group of them, and one, the Willow Tearooms, was fitted out by the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. In London, Lyons had a well-known chain, and so did the Aerated Bread Company. Unlike the older coffee houses, these rooms welcomed women. Since the early 2000s demand has grown again, with hotels and restaurants putting tea back on their menus.

Manners at tea

A tea at home had a reputation as the most relaxed and welcoming sort of gathering a household could give, and it could be put together in two or three days. Guests did not stay long. Half an hour of easy conversation was enough. If someone wanted a word with the hostess, or with the guest the tea was held for, they chose a quiet moment, kept it short and moved on. In the summer season a lady might give only a quarter of an hour to each tea before going to the next. Talk was deliberately light, and the writer Saki mocked how empty it sounded. Women wore loose tea gowns, often of chiffon, between 1875 and the 1920s.

How Afternoon tea is kept

A host lays out the meal in the middle of the afternoon. Guests take a cup and help themselves from a tiered stand, small sandwiches below, scones with cream and jam in the middle, sweet cakes above. Talk stays light and visits are short, often half an hour. High tea, eaten later between five and seven, begins with a savoury dish, hot or cold, then bread, butter, jam and cakes, all with tea. Tea rooms, hotel dining rooms and lounges follow a similar order, pouring a choice of teas.

When and where

Afternoon tea belongs to the middle of the afternoon, most often between four and five. High tea is later, roughly five to seven in the evening. The meal has no fixed date in the year; it is kept on ordinary days and for celebrations alike, and the hour has shifted over the centuries as the main evening meal moved later.

It is kept above all in the United Kingdom and in Commonwealth countries, among them Australia, New Zealand and Canada. London hotels and tea rooms are its best-known home, and awards are given there each year; Melbourne has served high tea since 1883. In Canada, grand railway hotels keep the ceremony going. In the United States it is mostly found in destination hotels.

What Afternoon tea means

For those who keep it, tea as a meal is a breathing space in the afternoon and a way of welcoming people without great fuss. The rules that grew around it are gentle: a cup, a little talk, and a guest who does not stay too long. In Britain it sits in two places at once, often called old-fashioned and still counted as part of how the country eats. The revival since the 2000s suggests people still want that pause.

Questions people ask about Afternoon tea

See also

Caffè sospesoAn anonymous gift of a paid cup of coffee for a stranger in needTea cultureHow tea is prepared, shared and served, from Chinese tea houses to Tibetan butter teaRussian tea cultureThe everyday cup of Russia, brewed strong and diluted to taste, with jam and sweetsLangarThe free kitchen at a gurdwara, where all sit and eat together as equals

Good reading and sources

• Tea with Grayson Perry. Or is it dinner, or supper?The Guardian, Article
• Tea with Grayson Perry. Or is it dinner, or supper?The Guardian, Article

• Tea (meal) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.