High Tea
by Mary Beth Schwartz
For hundreds of years the British have been serving it—elegantly in royal silver or bone china, simply with big mugs filled from the classic red clay Brown Betty. And no matter where you were on the social ladder, tea was a common element among the classes.
“We often confuse High Tea with Afternoon Tea. High Tea, also called Meat Tea and Great Tea, came about because it was a workingman’s supper. People worked hard all day on farms, in the mines, in the factories. They came home to a supper with a big pot of tea. It was the biggest meal of the day. Their High Tea was taken at a high dining table. This was to distinguish the meal from the elegant several-course Afternoon Tea taken at low tables, as you sat on couches or stuffed chairs in London’s grandest hotels. Today, the term High Tea is used by many fine hotels and tearooms because it sounds fancier than Low Tea or Afternoon Tea,” says Bruce Richardson, noted tea expert/author/tea master for the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum.
Richardson, along with tea specialist/historian/writer/consultant Jane Pettigrew discuss High Tea in their recently updated A Social History of Tea. “For more poor families, there was rarely time for cups of tea in the middle of the afternoon. But a large pot of strong tea sitting in the middle of the meal table amidst cold meats, pies, fried bacon and potatoes, cheese, home-baked bread or oatmeal cakes was a welcome sight at 5:30 or 6 p.m. at the end of the working day. The hearty meal was exactly what the workers needed as soon as they arrived home hungry and thirsty from a 10-hour shift.”