Hello! I'm Clever Apple! Let's study about 'Afternoon tea' today!
■Outline■
・This article is about one of the representative British cultures, 'Afternoon tea'.
・The content is for people who are interested in afternoon tea.
・The content is for people who are interested in afternoon tea.
1. A set order to eating
When you experience a traditional afternoon tea, you will probably see a 3-tiered stand like the above picture.
The photo is taken at Park Hyatt Tokyo last year.
You can eat whatever you want, but in fact, there is an order to eat.
In most cases, sandwiches are at the bottom, scones are at the middle, and dessert are on top and the order to eat is from the bottom.
2. Knives are not used for eating scones?
One of the typical sweets of afternoon tea is 'scones'.
I love hot scone with sweet jam and rich clotted cream.
I used to eat scones with a knife, but it is actually considered to be discourteous!
This is because the 'scone' comes from 'The Stone of Scone', and it is not good to use a knife for such a holy stone (Fujieda, 2013).
You might look like an afternoon tea-goer when people see you eat scones with your hands!
3. What food is the status symbol of ladies?
Ok, here is the question!
What kind of sandwiches that represent great hospitality?
①Ham ②Cucumber ③Egg
The answer is ............
②Cucumber!!!!
In Victorian times, the culture of afternoon tea originated and aristocrats grew cucumbers at the greenhouses. The cucumbers from the greenhouses were their status symbols and serving fresh cucumbers as sandwiches was the greatest hospitality (Fujieda, 2013).
Also, the thinner the sandwich bread, the better. This is because thin bread means that they have a good cook who can slice thin bread (Fujieda, 2013).
I personally prefer egg sandwiches to simple cucumber sandwiches haha.
4. My recommendations of books about tea.
In this article, I explained some trivia about afternoon tea from a book written by Fujieda (2013).
They are other 2 recommendations about tea book.
Rose, S. (2011). For All Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History. Penguin Books.
Saberi, H. (2010). Tea: A Global History. Reaktion Books.
5. Summary
・This article discusses a British culture: 'Afternoon tea'.
・Please let me know some interesting books about tea!
・Please let me know some interesting books about tea!
Have a good tea break:)
