British people. I need clarification

[Steaktartar]

So how many different types of ' tea times ' do you have? Is high tea the fancy one with sandwiches and cakes? And just 'tea'? Is that lunch? Also how often do you have high tea? Someone told me everyday or as often as possible? Surely you can't eat cake EVERYDAY?

We have High Tea - I didn't realise we were such relics! We inherited the term from DH's parents, who were, admittedly, very old-fashioned. For us it's an early evening meal, served cold - so sandwiches, boiled eggs, meat, cheese. Bit like a ploughman's lunch, I suppose, but with a big pot of tea to go with it.

Thinking about it, it's what we have when we've had a hot meal earlier on. Or when it's too hot to cook. Or I don't want to cook.

But tea as a drink, we drink a lot of that - even the teens (whose friends largely think they are weird and prefer fizzy drinks).

High tea is still around here (Scotland) but not usually at home. Some local pubs/cafes/hotels serve it, usually between about 4.30 and 6.30pm and it consists of a proper main course (steak pie with potatoes and veg or haddock, chips and peas, or gammon, egg, chips and peas, accompanied by bread and butter followed by scones and cake, and washed down with pots of strong tea. We used to go out for high tea as a special treat when we stayed with grandma and granda. Always ended up feeling like a snake that had swallowed a cow. Happy days .

I recall the High Tea meals being pretty standard sized in that particular pub but others may differ.

I recall piles of white bread and butter on the tea table at home and at relatives. Didn’t matter what we were eating. Cheap way of filling bellies. We would dip it in soup, mop up gravy, make a chip piece. Which brings me to a staple of my 70s diet- the mince roll, served at family gatherings for supper. I can see why I’m totally addicted to bread.

Tea is the children's evening meal served around 5 pm (we have 'dinner' a little later)

Afternoon tea is something you'd go out to a restaurant or cafe for a treat for, and would involve cakes, sandwiches and a pot of tea or, increasingly, 'sparkling' afternoon tea which is prosecco or some other kind of fizz.

Agree with PP that some (northern, working class) families might refer to the whole family's evening meal as 'tea' .

As for supper that's another conundrum completely. My PILs (southern, middle class) refer to their evening meal as supper but I would only ever refer to it as a late evening sort of light snack or meal, although I usually don't use the word supper at all.

I'm Scottish. Tea is your evening meal. Afternoon tea is something you get in hotels/restaurants with tiny sandwiches, mini pastries, bite sized cakes, scones etc and a pot of tea and, sometimes, a glass of fizz.
High tea is served in hotels/restaurants often to old dears out for their annual Guild trip. It's a substantial evening meal, served with bread and butter, followed by scones and cakes. It's not something that you would eat regularly.
Cream tea isn't really a Scottish thing, but it's scones, jam and cream with a pot of tea.

@gearandloathing, I would say 'supper' is something light eaten late evening, say after a trip to the theatre/pub/cinema.

"What remarkably poor English 😑"

I wonder what else we could confuse the OP with?

Breadcakes would be the obvious one, or what fish you get in a fish and chip shop, and what you expect a fishcake to look like.

I bet she wishes she never asked.

Tea - a hot drink taken any time of day

Tea - family evening meal in the north of England where traditionally 'dinner' ie the main meal is at midday.In the south lunch is the midday meal and dinner is in the evening.

Afternoon tea - eaten out of the home at a tea room or hotel, this is where you get the triple cale stand and little sandwiches.

Afternoon tea before about 1955 was only had by posh people and would be served around 4pm as a filler between lunch and dinner - much more common in the south.

High tea is a more substantial afternoon teas, served slightly later and has more savory items such as pies.

Cream tea - scones, clotted cream and jam served with tea. Whether you put the cream on the scone before the jam or vica versa depends on whether you are from Devon or Cornwall. No one ever puts cream in the actual tea.

I love this description of when tea becomes high tea from Henrietta's House by Elizabeth Goudge.

@BarbaraOfSeville Noooo, don't get started on bread cakes bread buns
Quickest way to start a fight lol

I note the OP hasn't come back

Don't blame her, she's probably gone for a lie down after all this

I suspect that the OP hasn't come back because she's in the US and it's early in the morning there.

To me High Tea - is what you have as a child if you eat at 5pm.

Afternoon tea involves finger sandwiches, scones & cakes

Tea - generally in the north means the same as dinner

Tea- also the drink

Then you also have supper which can be a light meal in itself if you had a big lunch for example or a snack after dinner or tea!

@managedmis i think I'll get it some day. Lol. Didn't know there were so many teas. Interesting

@littlemeitslyn a bit arrogant dont you think? Not everybody here is from UK with English as a first language. You are very rude

Yes thank you @TrendyNorthLondonTeen. I don't understand the need to say something so unnecessary and irrelevant. I asked about tea. Some people are so rude

I don't actually fully know what High Tea is - so that's interetsing to read.

Afternoon tea is what hotels and some local pubs do - and I'd like to go sometime and seem to be cakes and possibly small sandwiches.

Where I grew up it was breakfast, lunch/dinner (interchangeable) tea/dinner.

Then I married someone from further north in midlands where it was
Breakfast - snap if it's cold and in lunch box - or lunch at table and then tea then there a further meal called supper late at night.

We seem to have breakfast lunch and tea in our house.

If you’re offered tea? as a question – it means the drink or tea sometimes called cuppa – or brew.

@RosesAndRaindrops LOL. That's funny. Yes. Very overwhelming indeed

Tea - a cuppa
Tea break - tea and biscuits mid morning and mid afternoon
Tea - evening meal at home.

I'm from the south, dinner is a cooked lunch (think school dinner) or when you go out for a meal in the evening.

Cream tea - with scones that folk from the south west argue about usually eaten in the afternoon.
Afternoon tea - cakes and sandwiches for celebrations.
Birthday Tea - a key feature of children's parties like afternoon tea but with more food on the floor .
Chippy tea - the best type of tea (after the liquid) made up of deep fried items from the chippy.

Tea is what ordinary folk call dinner.

I'm ordinary folk and I call the evening meal dinner not tea.

Chippy tea and fish tea are new ones for me - fish supper or fish and chips seems to cover fish and chips for tea -(tea being evening meal eaten early evening)

Does no one else have nursery tea : an early evening meal usually involving scrambled eggs, or eggs and soldiers, especially when feeling poorly?

Tea is what ordinary folk call dinner

Dinner gets randomly applied to lunch or tea - kids sometime ask for clarification about which meal - I supposed I do that as that's what I grew up with – DH also talks about Sunday Lunch and also Sunday dinner – big roast meal on Sunday.

I think we’re pretty ordinary – both lived in North, Midlands and South England – so exposed to all variations of meal names.