Hi folks, I am having a discussion with my girlfriend about "afternoon tea" in the UK. I said it was normally taken at 4pm, but she has said that "tea at five" is a very famous British tradition, but I have never heard of "tea at five." I have been googling and can not find a definitive definition. Apparently "tea at five" was invented by the Duke of Bedford.

So is afternoon tea at 4 or 5? My argument against 5 is that that is when many people are getting to leave work, and therefore is not practical for many people.

Thanks!

I always thought it was closer to 3. What time are elevenses?

Phone the Ritz ? 4pm gets my vote although having worked in 5 star hotels in central London for years you will find it served from a lot earlier than that

The better classes take tea at around 1600, but it does rather depend on how the earlier part of the day went.

I thought it was 4pm as well.

5pm sounds far too late for T.

Tea is between three and five, dinner from 6 onwards, anything after 10 and it is supper.

Yeah – I would say the classic time is 4pm, although it could be served earlier.

Is it just me or has anyone else not heard of "tea at five"?

Oh – and in my family we had supper at 6!

Tea at 4pm on the dot with a selection of cakes if peckish maybe a cucumber or salmon sandwich

if your sitting at home and relaxing
or working in a noisy factory
when the clock strikes three
everyone stops for tea

Slight thread hijack, but the great cream tea debate:

Scone – jam – cream (Cornish) or scone – cream – jam (Devonian), which do you prefer?

Okay, technically Cornish style should involve a 'split' rather than a scone, but everyone ignores that these days…

The Ritz serves at 3:30 and 5:30.

I has always thought of it as "High Tea" at 4:00 myself, with Northerners having "tea" later, from say 5:0. Northern tea being a more substantial meal, comparable to "Dinner" in the south.

Obviously, They had dinner at lunch time.

Certainly in the 70's it always seemed to me when on holiday, that Northern families tended to be in the dining room earlier than southerners, but I suspect in 2010, this is probably a quirk of the past.

However, before anyone mocks me for my southern ways, as a student, I could never get a handle on the times for northern chippies. They'd round my way open at say 4:00 ish, open for a hour or so, and then close for a couple, to reopen at say 8:00 ish.

Southern chippies tended to open later, say 6:00 but then serve through to later, say 10 or 11: ish.

The better classes

🙄

Well, what did you expect, Darcy? 😉

Oh, and please don't take the Ritz as an example of anything. It's full of dreadful tourists. 😉

A proper Englishman will have had tea at 5pm today.

Thereby complying with the fine British tradition of "tea at 1600 hours Greenwich Mean Time".

And none of your foreign continental summertime bollox.

three o'clock as eny fule kno.

bravohotel9er – Member

Scone – jam – cream (Cornish) or scone – cream – jam (Devonian), which do you prefer?

scone-butter-jam-cream-scone (I live in Devon and this 'Devon upside down cream tea' thing is new to me, I suspect it was invented by some telly chef or other)

Ah, just for clarification I am talking about a cup of tea and a scone, not the early evening meal also known as "tea"!

* cough * not all tourists are dreadful! 😳

Being a northerner, meals are breakfast, dinner and tea, with 'dinner' being what the rest of the country would call lunch (around noon) and 'tea' being everyone else's dinner (the evening meal) after work.

"Afternoon tea" would be, well, in the afternoon, and I guess would equate in modern times to a light snack sort of 3-4pm. "Tea at five" I've never heard of, it sounds like something those wacky Americans would invent as being "typically English" when they've just made it up. Either that or perhaps a throwback to colonial times.

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bassspine – Member

scone-butter-jam-cream-scone
Posted 54 seconds ago # Report-Post

BUTTER?!?!? no no no.

Butter is not required!

as a northerner:

breakfast – between getting out of bed & dinner time;
dinner – between 11.45 and 13:00 (ish) depending how late breakfast was;
tea – between 18:00 and 19:00. Any later & it's fookin' late 😉
supper – just before bed.

the rest of you will probably know these as breakfast, lunch, dinner & supper respectively.

I reckon 4, Asterix says 5. 😉

Cream tea, you're all wrong. It should be scone – cream – jam – cream – scone, butter optional. (-:

(I'd concur with John_Drummer)

but Asterix is French (well, a Gaul actually) so what does he know?

I drink tea all through the afternoon, so any time between 12 and 5 I guess.

The old song goes "When the clock strikes 3….. everything stops for tea. So 3pm!