Went in a cafe of the wrong class today. [sad face]

I'm in Forrin too, and right now would kill my granny for a decent pasty.

• British rail/builders/PG tips is 'Orange Pekoe'. You can wow them with that down the hipster caff

Wish I'd fucking known it when hungover from hell in NY trying to get a bloody tea - I could hardly see, let alone choose a leaf from a list

Definitely went in the wrong class cafe today - no green tea only cranberry green tea ffs!!! Explanation given that they don't sell enough of it to be worth selling. Struggled to see the logic - normal tea cost £1.50 there, so they only needed to sell 2 cups of green tea to recoup the cost of 20 bags at Tesco's - please someone explain to me if this was lower middle class.

Talc I think it tastes like someone has dunked their fag end in there.

Mind you I have come to like fennel tea so who am I to teajudge? Can't drink proper tea at work as no pot and no fresh milk possible. Fennel/fruit doable and can be drunk lukewarm. It's hard. No HR I can turn to. Must be brave.

Have discovered pomegranate tea which is just a bit fruitier than any other 90 types of fruity teas and tastes no different but makes the office smell nice.

Seven pounds for a pasty is cheap by Chatsworth standards. Two years ago they were selling rhubarb for a pound a stlck. Dd worked in that cafe for a while last summer, many a tale had she to tell...

I would like you all to know that there is a place in Washington State that is so lumberjacket themed you get your burgers served on an axehead.

Has anyone ever stopped at Gloucester motorway services?

Middle class services where you get an organic butchers shop instead of a w h smiths, and they offer to brush your burger bap with rapeseed oil using a delicate herb sprig brush. Don't rely on getting a saucer with your overpriced latte though, they tend to run out as clearing the tables and washing up is not their forte.

We tried lapsang once, DH came out in dreadful hives.

(Theres a whole other thread about tea running at the moment btw.)

Agatha would have looked down her lorgnette at a blended tea, I expect, Fid. Single estate only in the polite drawing room of the Christie residence.

I have always enjoyed lapsing souchong - love the smoky flavour.

Love that pottery, Rattle. I think we had 3 canisters (tea/ coffee/ sugar), or at least something similar.

In our 1970s council house (for a moment there I forgot the point of the thread ).

Most chinese teas don't need lemon imo.

Just googled 'arabesque' - ooh, that was grim. My mother favoured Indian Tree.

When I was younger I always wondered about tea while reading Agatha Christie/PD James/other snobby writers.

There'd be this class-defining (as if shoes/clothes/speech/demeanour hadn't already given it away) question, "China or Indian?" Apparently the 'correct' answer was China, more up the social ladder.

Came to mind as I picked up a box of 'Twinings Everyday' when in England at half-term. Idly reading the box to delay unpacking, I noticed it says it contains Chinese tea. And Assam and African. Would Agatha/Phyliss have fainted?

More to the point, has anyone ever just had Chinese tea, with lemon?

usual/AllAloneNow

I always think of Hornsea pottery when I think of the 1970s. We had some Bronte (see pic) and remember it with fondness.

My parents got Arabesque as a wedding present in 1966, and still use it!

Oh yeah - good idea!

You just take two Welsh cakes and sandwich them together, Specklady.

Jam and cream? too decadent for the Welsh I am afraid.

Welsh cakes are too thin to put jam and cream in the middle of. No good.

Scon is more English and Scone is more Irish or Scottish.
Not sure about the Welsh - dont they have Welsh cakes instead?

Pontification A yum yum is a cross between a danish and a doughnut. A deep fried danish, if you will. It's covered in a 'glaze' (like icing, but thinner) and is quite tasty. Needs filling in it though.

But if you say scone to rhyme with bone, then the fastest cake in the word joke doesn't work.

And there she is, lying down for some inexplicable reason.

Probably had another tiff with Nanki Poo.

Maudlin I'm in Devon and they deep fry Mars bars here too (and they're bloody lovely)

pontification - Yum-yum is the heroine from The Mikado, the operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan.

What the actual Jeff is a yum-yum?
I am also in forrin and will spend my day weeping for Yorkshire tea in a mug and sausage rolls. But yum-yum? Wassat?

I say scone to rhyme with bone and I'm completely Northern.

I think that is 'normal' rather than 'middle class'.

My Mum still has a burnt orange, Kenwood Chef foodmixer, circa 1974...it weighs a tonne and is the size of a small car.

It would feckin beat the shit out of those fancy-dancy, pastel Kitchen Maids on Bake Off...

If those brown and orange plates are Denby Arabesque usual they could be collectors' items.