What could be nicer than enjoying a traditional English afternoon tea?
But are you doing it correctly?
Here's my official guide.
First things first, the napkin.
Never call that serviette.
Take it and place it on your lap, with the crease folded towards.
And next comes the actual drinking tea.
Always loose leaf tea, please, so you need to use a tea strainer.
And when it comes to stirring our tea, we go back and forth, back and forth,
in a 612 motion rather than round and round creating awful racket, splashing,
and any sugar you have added in will just sit in the bottom rather than dissolve.
After you’ve eaten the sandwiches with your fingers, not with a knife and fork,
then you can move onto the scones, pronounced "scone", not "scoun".
We don’t use a knife to cut into scones.
We break them with our hands into two, just like served.
When it comes to layering your scone, you have two options.
If you are using Cornish clotted cream, then the procedure is that you put the jam on first,
the cream on last, whereas the Devonian Devonshire clotted cream,
like the cream that seeps into the scone, and so they put it on first.
If you’re neither Cornish nor Devonian, you can do as you please,
but never sandwich the two together and eat it as a whole.
We use a small fork or, sometimes, a pastry fork to eat but up turned in the right hand.
And when you are finished, make sure you dab your mouth, not wipe.
My thanks to the Milestone Hotel and, now due to my guide, you know how to have afternoon
tea the correct way.