- This is not good for my body,
but it's so good for my everything else.
(upbeat, string music)
- Today, us two Americans are going to try
afternoon tea for the first time
in the heart of London.
- Although this guy is in it,
does not mean that it's a Worth It video,
I'm not Andrew.
- You're not Andrew?
- No, I'm not.
- Oh my gosh, I couldn't tell!
- Are you ready to have a tea party?
- Cheers.
(ding sound)
- Thank you for joining us here.
- Traditionally, afternoon tea comprise of
an afternoon tea stand.
Afternoon tea is basically
to bridge the gap between lunch and dinner,
and it comes with three tiers.
On the bottom you'd have your savory sandwich tier,
traditionally finger sandwiches.
And then moving up, you'd have a scone tier,
with scones, traditionally clotted cream and jam.
And then, on the top,
you'd finish with all of your delicate pastries.
And that'd also be accompanied with a cup of tea.
Today, I'm going to be preparing
our Charbonnel-inspired afternoon tea.
- So, tea is just one component of afternoon tea.
Did the focus of afternoon tea--
- Traditionally, it's the whole package.
- What is the right way to go about this whole experience?
- And the pinkie.
- Yeah, does the pinkie go out?
- No pinkie.
- No pinkie? - No pinkie?
- Is that just pretentious?
(laughs)
- I don't know where the pinkie came from.
(upbeat music)
So you take your filter, and then you pour it in.
- What is the filter for?
- It catches the tea leaves,
because traditionally, you wouldn't use a tea bag
with your tea, it's loose leaves.
- Does that make the flavor even broader in the tea?
- Yeah.
- Do people cheers when they do their tea?
- I've never cheersed to a tea, but--
- You've never cheersed?
Well, you're about to right now.
(laughs)
- You don't know us so, cheers!
- Cheers!
- We cheers everything.
(upbeat music)
- Ooh, beautiful!
- That looks amazing!
- For some reason it reminds me of a dollhouse,
it's so properly put together.
I don't even want to eat it.
- So, as tempting as it may be to start at the top,
unfortunately you have to start at the bottom,
and then you work your way up through the tiers,
from savory, to sweet and savory,
to finish on the sweet.
(upbeat music)
- We have a selection of five different finger sandwiches:
smoked salmon is quite popular,
cucumber and cream cheese is ever so popular as well,
we've done a twist on the (mumbles) tomato focaccia,
we have a ham and mustard there,
a red onion and cream cheese,
and then at the back we have beef and horseradish.
- So finger sandwiches.
At first I was worried that these would be sandwiches
made out of fingers of different animals, but it's not.
- Yeah, I was worried about that too.
Whoo. - I mean
you're telling me that thought didn't pop into your head
for a second when he said finger sandwiches?
All right.
- Its' so easy to eat, it's almost scary.
- I feel like I could eat 20 of these, like popcorn.
- I have the roast beef here.
Roast beef, it's like a really rich mayonnaise.
- That's really good.
- This is cool, cause these are the kind of sandwiches
that I would make at home.
- They're very simple, there's something like,
nostalgic about it, like this is something
my mom would make me, like going off to school.
- I like this experience, because this makes me feel
a little posh.
- A little pampered.
- Somebody is putting it in the easiest form
for you to just put it in your mouth.
All right.
Round one - Tier one complete.
- I'm already pretty full.
(upbeat music)
- The middle tier is two types of scones,
we have a Sicilian lemon scone, and we have a
Charbonnel et Walker chocolate scone.
Traditionally it's served with clotted cream and jam,
but we've done our little spin on it,
and we've done vanilla mascarpone, and an orange marmalade.
You break the scone, and then it's up to you whether you
cream first, and then jam, or jam and cream.
- What do you, I know there's a lot of controversy.
- For me, you've got to put the cream on first.
- I'm going for the lemon one first.
- Yeah, cause they're already pre-sliced almost.
- Cream first.
- Oh my god, that is thick.
- Did you just eat without me, without cheersing?
- You're making a sandwich?
- A proper scone.
That's really good, it's not dry at all.
It looks like it's crumbly, like to the point of dry.
But in your mouth, with the cream cheese, and the jam,
it really helps solidify the whole thing.
It comes together.
- Perfect combination of flavors.
- Chop into this guy.
- Oh man, I'm making a mess over here.
- Yeah.
- All right.
- It looks like egg yolk.
Cheers, old bloke.
- Cheers.
(ding sound)
It's so good.
What a great tea party this is.
- Oh my god, this is awesome.
(upbeat music)
- Look at that, it's a powdered donut,
and you dip it in chocolate.
- Oh my god.
- Dunk that.
- This looks so good.
- Look at that.
- Cheers
- Cheers.
- We've reached the seventh layer of hell, whatever it is.
We are in pure sin.
(techno dance party music)
You know how I know it's so wrong?
- Cause it tastes so good?
Cheers.
Caramel.
The crumpet, this must be the...
- No.
- No?
- It's a brownie.
- Oh, it's a brownie.
- First pour the chocolate on top.
- Oh my god, go big or go home.
- Let the rain flow.
Let the sin blow over it.
- Dude I always pictured afternoon tea as this very light,
sophisticated, like, we're going ham over here.
- Oh god.
- That's a unique flavor right there, it's not just
straight-up chocolate.
- There's like a lemon or something in there.
It's really good.
Look. I'm dead.
We did it, we had afternoon tea.
- We did.
- I feel like we are in the British version of
Sex in the City right now.
I don't know what those people do in that show,
but they're always hanging out in cafe's at 2pm.
- How people do this in between lunch and dinner,
commonly, is beyond me.
- I did enjoy it, it was a good time.
- I did too.
You know, it's exciting, you get such a variety of things.
You get to go on a little adventure with your friend
while you hang out.
(light music)