One of the fun things about travelling in the UK is the amount of tea I drank. But this isn’t about tea, the drink, it’s about the dizzying number of things that word can mean. (And yeah, showing off some food I ate.)
“Tea” can mean this:
Or this:
Or this:
Seriously, what kind of language is English that when you say “Tea,” it could mean “a hot drink made from leaves” or it could mean what I would call “dinner” (or something in between those two things)? It’s ridiculous. We have a ridiculous language.
While in Britain, I had several rounds of cream tea (though once I was an American Rebel and had a Victoria Sandwich with my tea instead of a scone, and…guys, if you tour the Royal Yacht Britannia, go with the scone in the cafe. The Victoria Sandwich was fine, but the reports on the scone was “a proper sized scone” and also very tasty.)
(Also I got a stuffed corgi, which I had been resisting buying since I saw one with a tiara in London, but they had stuffed corgis hidden around the entire ship and I caved. Say hi to Stilton.)
Cream tea, which is tea served with scones with clotted cream and jam, is a wonderful thing to have, especially when you really need an excuse to sit down after climbing a castle and walking around the Shambles. Tea is very restorative in that situation.
Upon many, many MANY people’s suggestions, I went to Betty’s Tea Room in York, which is ADORABLE and their tea blend was truly excellent. The scones were delicious, and the clotted cream was clotted and creamy. (There were a couple of moments where I realized I don’t know the proper order of operations. Cream first, then jam? Make it into a sandwich? Put a bit of cream and jam on, take a bite, and repeat? Decide that your accent marks you as a heathen who can’t be expected to know these things and not care too much?)
Also, the building across the street has a statue of a cat that is probably supposed to scare away pigeons.
As you can see, it doesn’t work. (It’s so cute though!)
In Edinburgh, I insisted on doing a proper afternoon tea with the sandwiches and the cakes and the whole bit. We had it at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, because hey, tea at the Palace? That just sounds damn civilized. IT WAS DELICIOUS. They brought over a selection of teas to choose from, and then, once you’ve made your choice, they bring over a TIMER with the the teapot to make sure you allow it to brew for the optimal time. (One of our party poured a cup too soon, and when the waitress was like “NOOOOOOOOOO,” he poured it back into the pot.)
The sandwiches we had were (what I am given to understand from The Great British Bake Off) classic tea sandwiches: roast beef with horseradish, salmon with a bit of black caviar, egg mayonnaise (egg salad), and cheese with an onion chutney. I wanted about 8 more of the cheese sandwiches. We also had a very excellent Victoria Sandwich, a strawberry tart, a carrot cake, and an eclair that my dining companions declared to be a very good eclair (I am fairly indifferent to eclairs, so I really don’t have a useful rating system). Also scones and clotted cream and jam.
( I do suggest, given the choice, that you not be seduced by the delicate scent of the jasmine tea, and go for the breakfast or Earl Grey. The jasmine tea wasn’t robust enough to stand up to the other flavors of the meal.)
The concept of “tea” meaning “Dinner” was very confusing to me as a kid reading British books. According to Wikipedia, the meal tea is a term used almost everywhere but southern England, and tends to be a working class thing. My 1920 Mrs Beaton (!!!!!!!!) describes High Tea as a meal:
“…quite taking the place of late dinner, and to many it is a most enjoyable meal, young people preferring it to dinner, it being a moveable feast that can be partaken at all hours which will not interfere with tennis, boating, or other amusements. At the usual High Tea, there are probably to be found one or two small hot dishes, cold chickens or game, tongue or ham, salads, cakes of various kinds, sometimes cold fruit tarts with cream or custard, and fresh fruit.”
Like with many things Mrs. Beeton, that sounds like an impossibly high standard, and is it just me or is does that whole “Young people with their tennis and their boating” thing sound kind of like “kids these days”?
So that’s my recommendation should you go to the UK: have a lot of tea, eat a lot of scones, have a fancy afternoon tea at least once (and if you’re going to a fancy pants place, like the Ritz in London, check the dress code and wear your fancy pants), and remember: no lemon and milk in the same cup. It curdles.
Oh, riding on the train in First Class means there’s a tea trolley that comes by with complimentary tea during the whole trip, and that is just so fucking civilized.
I now want to go to the UK and have all of the tea. Maybe I could plan a vacation around HP and the Cursed Child, Hamilton, yarn shops—yarn festivals?!!!—and all of the tea. So, in 2020? Or is that too optimistic regarding tickets?
The tea/dinner argument is an old one. I grew up on the west coast of Scotland and in my family the evening meal is dinner. Other areas in the Scotland call it tea, they’re weirdos though :p.
I may have to do afternoon tea at Holyrood, it looks fab!
I could go on about tea and places to have afternoon tea for HOURS, but in view of not being scarily obsessive I will just recommend the afternoon tea at the Boston Public Library, which I understand to be in your neck of the woods. It’s similar to the Holyroodhouse tea but with some more American flavors, and they mainly serve it around lunchtime.
The cat is part of the cat trail round York – you get a leaflet which tells you all of the locations and meanings of the various cats, and it’s great fun!
Betty’s Tea Room is absolutely the BEST place in the world. Except for the Harry Potter shop in the Shambles.
@msbookjunkie that is my ideal vacation! And yes, 2020 is probably optimistic–I check for Hamilton tickets at least once a week.
Hi Stilton!
Awww! So cute.
I love TEA. Just last week I went to tea at the Virgin Hotel in downtown Chicago where there were a few too many sweet (but delicious) things like chocolate pecan tart, sugar cookies, and such to go along with the mushroom and spinach quiche or cucumber sandwiches. But the English breakfast tea was delicious and the serving set was beautiful, if a little modern 🙂
I’m hoping to make a trip to the UK in the next few months and will definitely put Betty’s on my list of places to try.
Thanks for the review!
I’m so glad you enjoyed your trip, RHG. Right now tea might just be the Best of British!
I love that in this day and age it is possible to have delicious things like a cream tea or an afternoon tea at home (in my case this means the city of Berne, capital of Switzerland – I do not actually live there, but close enough). That way I can „travel“ to foreign places even when I am currently not able to do so „in the flesh“. You can get your cream tea at marta, a bar in a cellar in the old town, where you also get ale and other things British. And for afternoon tea you go to Längass tea, a family owned shop who specializes in tea, and where you can also learn about a Japanese tea ceremony. Their afternoon tea is original in that everything is whole-grain.
I spent a month in the UK fifteen plus years ago, and I still fondly remember tea in all forms. It’s such a practical thing. You’re running around doing stuff, get tired, say “let’s have tea,” and nobody thinks a thing about it no matter what time of day it is.
This post speaks to my soul. I’m teaching in the midwestern US right now, where tea breaks are emphatically not a thing (alas) and I only survive because I own multiple thermoses. Fortunately, there’s a Scottish tea shop in town where I can go when I need sympathy and an oat biscuit.
I grew up in England but have lived in the States now for almost as long as I spent in the UK. Anytime I go back to visit family, I have a list of things I absolutely need to eat before getting back on the plane. Tea is one of them, along with a pub lunch in a proper pub garden setting, real Indian food, and pork pies. Oh my gosh, pork pies.
We will be heading to York next Summer for a family wedding. I’ve never been to Betty’s so we will make that a must-do.
I see your palace and raise you a castle: The Tea Rooms at Edinburgh Castle. Mr. A. and I went to the UK for our 20th anniversary and loved it there. Loved everywhere in Scotland, actually. The Tea Rooms also offer a wee dram of whisky to have with your tea. Very civilized.
In college for a treat we would go have Afternoon Tea at the golf club on campus. You saw lots of students there at the end of semesters — it was a treat plus you wanted to make sure you had extra money in your meal plan so you didn’t have to pay real money from your bank account.
Betty’s has the best caramel slices (or Millionaire’s Bars) and Fat Rascals (is it cake, scone, who cares?). They were the inspiration to figure out my own recipes because I can’t get to York often enough. Your pictures and post have made me very hungry.
I LOVE tea – the beverage itself, the preparation, the afternoon tea … I used to try to educate people that high tea is NOT the tiny tea sandwiches and treats, but a hearty meal. No one cared. Many of the locations that serve tea call afternoon tea “high tea”, which apparently drives me nuts.
I was in the UK for a structured trip a 1 1/2 years ago and we had time to have a scone and tea at only one place – Blarney Castle. Which really just meant the cafeteria attached to the gift shop. It was good, but I really missed out on having a nice afternoon tea. The tour was one of those scheduled ones run by a company, which I will *never* do again.
This brought tears to my eyes. OMG to be back over there and within reach of tea in all its many guises.
My husband [aka the Resident Storm Chaser and as Texan as they come] sat down to our first meal on our road trip to Cornwall [we picked up a car at Gatwick and drove instead of staying in London, probably because so many people told us we were insane if we even considered such a thing, and that London would keep us enchanted and busy for longer than we’d ever be able to stay, and driving on the wrong side of the road, and having never been there before, and oh no no no don’t even consider it, and hey, we are Gryffindors from Texas, gauntlet flung, we drove and have never regretted it on any of our trips since] [where was I? oh yeah] first meal which happened to be breakfast at a Happy Chef on the motorway and he ordered fish and chips [for breakfast, because he’s weird, and btw, better than any fish and chips we’d had on this side of the pond, even at Happy Chef].
And he–who doesn’t even drink iced tea–ordered “hot tea” to go with it. Was promptly informed that their tea was always hot, because suggesting otherwise was an affront to British sensibilities.
And I [after picking my jaw up off the floor] hissed, “You don’t eat fish and chips for breakfast, and you drink hot tea with fish and chips, but seriously–my real question–you don’t even like tea. Why did you order it?”
And with the same affronted air as the waitress had responded to his request for hot tea, he said, “I didn’t come to England NOT to drink hot tea.”
Which made no sense. But it was the beginning of his love affair with English tea in all its forms, and fish and chips in all its forms and for any meal when he felt like it, and all the other “horrible” English food we ate in pubs and cafes and B&Bs throughout the West Country.
First cream tea–in a tiny tea room in a tiny village on the coast of Cornwall with a lovely fire [it was February] and a view of the Channel.
[Wipes another tear.]
I’ll shut up now.
This is totally my kind of post. I spend a lot of time thinking about tea – in all senses of the word. Afternoon tea is one of my favourite things! My husband is from Devon, where they put cream on the scone before they put on the jam. In Cornwall they do it the other way around. The debate as to which is correct is FIERCE. Also, how to pronounce scone. Is is scone to rhyme with gone? Or scone to rhyme with stone? Depends where in the country you are.
Anyway, I can (and often do) go on about cakes and tea for hours. I’m glad you got to sample afternoon tea, tea and cake, high tea and just, plain old tea. It’s all terribly British.
(and Stilton the corgi is very cute).
I still remember, many years ago, having tea in a crypt under … some Cathedral? By Trafalgar Square? Anyway, not the best tea but a fun atmosphere.
More recently I went to afternoon tea in Albuquerque, New Mexico, certainly not a place known for such things. They were having a pirate theme for the month, so we got foods that might have been influenced by the spice trade, or were otherwise thematic, and they had thematic music playing, such as the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean. Pretty good, but your classic British tea sounds better.
Oh the tea/dinner/supper conundrum – you should pop over to Mumsnet for a full rundown of this!
I love afternoon tea – the cake/sandwich/scone type in any combination. I also love high tea, which, when I was a child was something like sausages or boiled eggs or cheese on toast (I think that’s your toasted cheese?).
Nowadays I will switch between tea and supper for referring to the thing I eat in the evening, because I am a southerner who moved to the north! I tend to use supper more though. It would only be dinner if it was quite smart and more than one course, and we had people coming round.
The Bridge tea room in Bradford on Avon does a wonderful afternoon tea…had it once, have never forgotten it…
@Kris Bock, I think you’re remembering the Cafe in the Crypt at St. Martin in the Fields. I haven’t been there since 2002, but I have fond memories of the apple crumble with custard (which I no doubt ate with tea.)
This post also made me nostalgic for my one and only visit to York, which was with a group trip the summer after I graduated from high school, more than 20 years ago. We went to Betty’s for tea, and I somehow managed to spill an entire cup of tea down my front, which was particularly embarrassing because our next stop was the evensong service in York Minster. A friend lent me a shirt to cover up the worst of the damage.
We went to England in August. All of August, actually. And before we got home, my husband and I had decided that if we were to go back to England we would have to go for the ENTIRE YEAR in order to see and do everything there was to see and do.
Ooh, it looked like a wonderful trip! Love tea!
I always recommend the Cafe in the Crypt to London-visiting friends (for the experience, not the food).
The Victorian Bridge Tearoom in Bradford on Avon is indeed wonderful if you can choose between the tea and their sideboard groaning under the weight of the traditional cakes.
I’ve not been to the UK but in my part of the world (Tasmania)… I have a big cup of tea with breakfast, a cup of tea when I get to work, morning tea (a short break with tea and a snack), lunch (which we called dinner when I was a child), afternoon tea (just tea, no snack for me), then dinner (which we called tea when I was a child).
Here the cream tea is called Devonshire Tea. I split the scone, spread the jam then dollop the cream then eat each half seperately with a cup of tea.
The stack of cakes is called High Tea here and I never heard of such a thing until about 5 years ago.
I had a clotted cream with my bun or scone (not as memorable as the cream) and tea back in 1990. I was traveling the Lake District and had just toured Harriet Potter’s House. That cream is one of the most memorable things I have ever eaten! Heavenly! I do recommend that tour too if you are ever in the area.
My hubby and I went to the UK for the first time in June. I drink coffee here in the US because that’s what is usually most available, but I prefer tea. One of the best things about traveling in the UK is that tea – properly made tea in a teapot – is available EVERYWHERE.
We had cream tea a couple of times, either on the road or at our hotel, then we had a proper afternoon tea at The Stables restaurant at Chatsworth House (a/k/a Pemberley) with those lovely tea sandwiches similar to those you mentioned and scones and lemon syllabub. We’ve all read about syllabub in historical romances, right? So it was really cool to try one and it was heavenly.
Honestly, the whole trip was just heavenly and I have the best husband in the world because he recently announced that we are going to Scotland and Wales next year!
@Patricia Burroughs aka Pooks:
I loved your story about your hubby’s newfound love of tea. We’re native Oklahomans; my husband is a truck driver and all our friends giggled at the very idea of him going to England. He loved ALL OF IT – tea, the delicate tea sandwiches, scones, fish and chips, the pubs, the museums, the gardens, etc. We did a road trip and yes, he drove and we managed to get around extremely well.
@Pam Shropshire
First, what I fabulously English surname! Do you pronounce it Shropsher or with the Shire rhyming with wire? I’m wondering if the English pronunciation stuck with it through the generations.
Our husbands have much in common, I’m sure! Including the driving! I finally drove over there a bit, not much, but enough to know I could adjust and handle it pretty well if I never need to. I was given the ‘secret’ to how a Yank should approach driving over there before we went and it made all the difference in the world.
Pick up your auto at the airport or somewhere very close to the Motorway [which is like our divided interstates]. If you can get on the Motorway/M-Road immediately and drive for an hour or two before stopping, it gives you time to adjust to seeing traffic coming from the other side, to sitting on the ‘wrong’ side, to steering and such. Once you’re out of traffic you can change lanes and such and just, you know, get used to it without having to turn corners, deal with traffic turning in front of you, all the usual driving issues. That will do so much to help you adjust.
Then, if you can continue to stay on the bigger roads for a bit before you end up on the narrow ones where oncoming traffic will freak you out, you’ll adjust gradually. Also, while we didn’t do it because we didn’t know about it, you can get an L card to hang which is what people learning to drive are required to use. That way everybody around you understands that you may make some mistakes and you’ll have the benefit of them hopefully giving you a wider berth. LOL
I just did a search and found L-plates instead of cards so don’t know if that process has changed or not. Maybe somebody will clarify.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/l-plate-size-rules/l-plate-sizes
OT, sorry: @Patricia Burroughs aka Pooks: I drove in the UK for the first time in 1994 and purchased a booklet called “Left Alive, Dead Right,” which was invaluable. They recommended practicing by sitting in the front passenger seat of your US car while parked, with the rear view mirror turned towards you. By getting into the habit of looking up left and down right, you have an idea of where to look when you’re driving in the UK.
Since then, I’ve driven whenever we travel there and my husband is a wonderful navigator (that’s another key). In August, I drove 2,000 miles and loved every minute. “Left alive, dead right” is still my mantra. To this day, though, I sometimes look in the rear view mirror and wonder, “Why is a dog driving the car behind me?”
The Cafe in the Crypt is fun, though I think it’s grown quite a bit over the years. Do the free lunchtime concert as well, if there’s time.
I lived in England for 5 years. I knew that “tea” was kids’ dinner, but somehow I invited a woman whose kids were friends with mine and whom I was hoping to befriend for tea as the kids played. So, we drank our tea. The kids played. It’s getting close to dinner time and she’s making no move to leave. In fact, she’s kind of looking at me like I’m looking at her — like why doesn’t she get on with it?
Light dawns. Worse yet, I don’t have the makings for dinner for all of us, so I have to apologize. Needless to say, it was an epic fail as a way of making a friend.
Most places that serve a proper tea will give you more sandwiches (for free) if you ask. Same goes for scones. So you could’ve had eight more ploughman sandwiches if you wanted.
I noticed when I was with Australians, they call the main meal they eat in the evening “tea”. It makes sense because most of he people who colonized Australia were lower class.
My Scottish friends from Aberdeenshire call dinner “tea”.
I had the tastiest soup at the Cafe in the Crypt at St. Martin in the Fields on my trip in 1994. It looked horrid, but we arrived at the end of lunch service and had very little to choose from. I got lucky.
I love York! And I’ve had tea at Betty’s Tea Room. There’s nothing better than taking a break from all the walking and climbing and standing, knowing you’ll get a properly made cup of tea while you rest. I’m wary of ordering tea in the US because they never make it right. I’d rather have it at home where the water is boiled fresh from cold water and reaches the right temperature before being poured over the tea leaves. Makes all the difference!
I had an afternoon tea for my wedding reception, complete with tea sandwiches and pastries. It was lovely, yummy and fun.
And now I want to go back to England/Scotland/Ireland! To be fair, I always want to go back, but now the longing is fresh.
So glad you had a lovely trip, @Redheadedgirl!