Tea tidbits

The difference between English tea and high tea clarified by eatWashingtonian Horace Freeland Judson: “Tea, the meal consumed about four o’clock in the afternoon, is middle class and upper class, and may include bread and butter, thin sandwiches of, say, smoked salmon on brown bread or of cucumber on white; scones (pronounced something between ‘skahns’ or ‘skawns’ in England, never ‘skOHns’) which are small and light, exactly like our baking-powder biscuits; fruit cake, tiny tarts or petit fours or, in December, mince pies, which are always small, two-crust tarts about an inch and a half to two in diameter. ‘High tea’ is not a fancy version of the other, but always denotes a working-class early-evening meal the family eats when the man of the house comes home from the mine or the mill, in other words an early supper, and may include, say, grilled kippers or toad-in-the-hole or sausage and mash, canned baked beans, fish pie (shepherd’s pie made with fish in white sauce), and so on. I’ve lived in England for years and was for much of that time a correspondent for Time magazine; once a colleague wrote a story that mentioned that the Queen had ‘high tea’ at the palace – which caused hoots of laughter among the natives in the news bureau, before an urgent message to New York to fix the error.”

Shepherd's Pie, often offered at High Tea, should be made with ground lamb, Cottage Pie with ground beef. (But ground beef mince is more commonly used, however the pie is named.)

For an impressively comprehensive list of tea rooms locally and nationally, log onto   http://www.catteacorner.com. It’s an amusing site, with tea dance piano music and it also lists places serving bubble tea.

For a course to learn about traditional Japanese tea and the Japanese tea ceremony, call the local Urasenke Tradition of Tea branch, 703 748 1685.

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