High Tea, Low Tea, in my Lady's Chamber Tea

High tea table laid for ten persons, The Book of Household Management, Mrs Isabella Beeton, Ward Lock and Bourdon Ltd, London 1893

In my quest for a good method to make clotted cream (alas, still in abeyance) I have found a lot of conversation in the blogosphere about High Tea.

It seems everyone wishes to neatly pigeonhole ‘afternoon tea’, ‘low tea’, ‘high tea’ into neatly categorised slots, some being upper class, some being working class or blue collar etc.  Meals evolve and adapt down the ages and I think this has happened with tea so the definitions cannot be as simple as that.

As a child growing up in Hampshire in the early 1970s, I understood that lunch was served at one o’clock, tea ( always tea, not afternoon tea, which I feel is quite a new description) at around four, and then dinner in the evening. However there were some people at my junior school who had dinner at 12 noon, went home for tea at about five (a big meal) and then had supper (a light meal before bed).

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, fashionable society started to eat dinner later and later in the day. You can read examples of this in Jane Austen’s stories with descriptions of characters eating either fashionably late or unfashionably early.

I would suggest many people in the deep countryside were still eating dinner at what they regarded as normal midday (unfashionable) and then having their end-of-working-day meal washed down with tea at around five or six. They would ‘go home for their tea’. I don’t think though that this ‘tea’ was originally called high tea, it was just tea.

Detailed below is the opening paragraph of Chapter LXV, “General observations on Teas, with menus for wedding, at home, high tea and family teas”, from The Book of Household Management, Mrs Isabella Beeton, Ward Lock and Bourdon Ltd, London 1893.

High tea for twelve persons - Summer. High tea for twelve persons - Winter

 “Under the head of ‘Teas’, how many different meals are served? We say ‘meals,’ perhaps incorrectly for the afternoon cup of tea (in many fashionable houses the only tea served) can scarcely come under this head; but independent of this, we have wedding teas, high teas, ‘at home’ teas, ordinary family teas, and in some old fashioned places, whose inhabitants have not move with the times, still a quiet tea where people are invited to partake of such nice things as hot buttered toast, tea cakes, new laid eggs, and home-made preserves and cake. A pleasant meal, that is only the precursor of a good supper, of which we shall speak later on”.

Leaving aside the chapters on Wedding tea and At Home teas, I am focusing on the description of ‘High Tea’. Firstly the picture at top of this page is entitled,  ‘High Tea Table arranged for ten persons’. Secondly the two menus below provide ideas for food to serve.

Thirdly Mrs Beeton describes it thus; “ High tea may be either a substantial meal with several courses that is in all but a name (like a first rate luncheon) a dinner, or it may be with one or two little dishes of fish, poultry, game or meat, either cold or rechauffé, more like an early supper.

In some houses it is a permanent institution, quite taking the place of later 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 of at hours which will not interfere with tennis, boating or other amusements, and but little formality needed.  At the usual high tea there are probably to be found one or two small hot dishes, cold chickens, or game, tongue or ham, salad, cakes of various kinds, sometimes cold fruit tarts, with cream or custard, and fresh fruit. Any supper dish, however can be introduced, and much more elaborate meals be served, while the tea and coffee are relegated to the sideboard and wine only in the way of drink put up on the table. In summer it is not unusual to have everything cold at a high tea.”

Does that help at all? I think first and foremost tea is a drink, and originally a highly prestigious drink. Different groups in society, both regionally and of different social standing,  adopted their own particular meal. The only unifying feature is that it took place after noon and around the drinking of a cup of tea. I feel that Mrs Beeton’s advice about High Tea is not being presented for the working classes or blue collar workers.  Perhaps it is best not to worry – just enjoy what you are offered or create your own feast!

Comments please.