Good Afternoon Tea

[RosieBrock]

Was taken out following long illness for tea at an Eastbourne Hotel . The sandwiches and cakes and pastry were simply awful - the cheapest and not a glimmer of exquisite patisserie in sight. Truly bad.

My idea of a good afternoon tea starts with triangles of crustless bread, spread with butter and then made into sandwiches - plain smokes salmon with lemon and pepper, sliced freshest of cucumbers with peel off and sprinkle of salt, (no cream cheese), thinly sliced home grown large spanish tomatoes, also with a sprinkling of salt, and egg and cress (no mayonnaise) with a tiny amount of pepper and salt. Then tiny fruit tartlets, made with hme made buttery shortcrust pastry, layered with creme patisserie sliced strawberries and a strawberry glaze, Belgian chocolate truffle squares, home made melt in the mouth meringues with whipped jersey cream, delicate puff pastry cheese straws, plain scones, wild strawberry jap, and clotted cream, and tea- plenty of it.

Like most things afternoon tea has become a mass produced commercialised way of getting into what would be otherwise empty spaces.

If you want a good one you have to go to the right places and be prepared to pay for the experience. I don’t enjoy afternoon tea for all the reasons you’ve posted.

Hope you are feeling better.

They were good when they started back being a bit of a trend but now most places are buying in the mass produced little cakes and pastries so it's hard to find a good one. Mind you pay enough and some are still made in house!

What keeps a mashed egg stuck together though if you don't use a bit of mayonnaise?

MaryLou 25 A dollop of butter? Keeps eggs together.

I like an afternoon tea, but I've found that they tend to do too many cakes & pastries and not enough sandwiches or savoury morsels.

Oh yeuk, I'd like that even less, you'd need a decent blob of butter, would prefer the bit of mayonnaise, then again I actually love salad cream on hard boiled eggs 😁

Coronation chicken, egg and cress (with mayo) and a ham/cheese/chutney sandwich for me, but salmon and cream cheese is fine too. Must be crustless finger sandwiches though, not triangles and a mix or brown and white bread. Must be plenty of them too.

Agree on plain scone, a generous scoop of cream in a bowl not in a plastic mini tub (the very thought!!)

Other cakes should be broad in range. Something chocolate, something fruity, something creamy. So brownie, fruit tart and cream filled suger worked eclair or similar. Tart au Citroen or pavlova also acceptable.

Agree with savory vs sweet ratio. The desserts should be delicate, the scone should be large though and ay least 4 sandwiches. I went to a very expensive tea last summer and had to order chips afterwards as I wasn't full at all!

I'm a sandwich hater, so traditional afternoon teas are all about the cakes and scones for me. The best afternoon tea I've ever been to was an Indian afternoon tea. Delicious Indian savoury snacks and unlimited chai.

That sounds a real disappointment OP and I agree with your delicious menu!

I love watching YouTube for this and seeing what how they do afternoon tea in London, especially with the big old established places; Harrods, Fortnum and Mason and Liberties to name a few.

I don't want a big scone, I can buy that in a coffee shop anyday, I like a selection of flavours, ideally 3 dainty little scones, fruit/plain/chocolate would be acceptable. Clotted cream a must.

I'm a cake person too so will eat the sandwiches but could easily just do all scones and cake.

Your tea sounds dreamy, but I'd like some sort of almond and raspberry type cake thing and a fruit scone please

Where was that?

Praza in Birmingham. The Olympics have reminded me the last time I went was after waking up at 2am to watch gymnastics qualifications during the last Olympics!

Crustless finger sandwiches for me. Cucumber, egg and smoked salmon for definite. Maybe a roast beef and horseradish. Maybe some savoury tartes or quiches - bite size. Then a plain scone with clotted cream and jam. I like the pastries to be light. Something like a lemon tart. Lots of tea and champagne.

We have a place that does a fabulous afternoon tea and tipsy tea. Nothing overly fancy but freshly baked bread with open sandwiches of smoked salmon, ham and mustard (proper ham none of that "only 50% is actually meat" business), and cucumber and cream cheese. Freshly baked buns or slices of cakes, whatever they have been making that day, and scones with clotted cream and made-on-site jam. Copious amounts of tea or you can have prosecco instead.
Unfortunately my tolerance for all that sweet stuff these days isn't very high and I tend to avoid.