{"id":479,"date":"2013-06-13T04:36:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T04:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlewanderingwren.com\/2013\/06\/the-great-afternoon-tea-treat.html\/"},"modified":"2013-06-13T04:36:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T04:36:00","slug":"the-great-afternoon-tea-treat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlewanderingwren.com\/staging\/8794\/2013\/06\/13\/the-great-afternoon-tea-treat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Afternoon Tea Treat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, that I love London Town<\/strike>“… Afternoon Tea!<\/em><\/strong> <\/div>\n
The best Afternoon Teas are a grand occasion… a special event to be lingered over, with time to savour. To delight in the cute exotic sandwiches, to marvel at the fancy cakes, to indulge in the scones and clotted cream, but most of all to enjoy the company of friends or family… <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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The best Afternoon Teas have fine tableware, tea strainers, fresh flowers <\/em>and of course sugar lumps!<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Did you know? The tradition of the English Afternoon Tea comes from one of HM Queen Victoria’s ladies in waiting Anna, seventh Dutchess of Bedford (1783 – 1857) In her day, being posh she would have eaten a huge breakfast, very little lunch and then an interminably long wait until dinner. She describes a “sinking feeling” in late afternoon and so one day she instructed her Butler to bring her Afternoon Tea with cakes in her boudoir…. Don’t you just love that word Boudoir? Sorry I digress…<\/em><\/div>\n

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Strawberries dipped in white and dark chocolate at the Eastern and Oriental, Penang<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n

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Let’s raise our little pinky finger to Anna for trending #afternoon tea because somehow without blogging<\/em> and Twitter<\/em>, the delightful experience of taking afternoon tea caught on… At first this was only among the upper echelons of society but later teashops and tearooms opened for the general public to enjoy…<\/div>\n
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The best Afternoon Teas arrive piled high on a lovely cake stand, as at the Terrace Tearooms, Botanical Gardens, Melbourne. <\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
Top marks for the pretty tea cups too!<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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Somewhere along the line, maybe in a boudoir in Essex in the 1980’s, someone decided to add bubbly or even Champagne to the High Tea…<\/div>\n
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A glass of bubby makes an afternoon tea special. <\/em>Photo<\/em> courtesy of Tophams Hotel, Belgravia, London, UK<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
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Wren has enjoyed some memorable Afternoon Teas in the past year…<\/strong><\/div>\n