Lately, I’ve been looking into a mysTEAry regarding a line in one of Agatha Christie’s books and how many types of afternoon teas there might have been. Which is how I found Afternoon Tea: A History by Julia Skinner. I’ve read a bit about afternoon teas while reading other tea books (such as in A Thirst for Empire or A Social History of Tea), but I’m always keen to read more so I dove into this book ASAP.

Afternoon Tea is a short book that covers the history of afternoon tea within the British empire and its ex-colonies. The book has four chapters which cover:

• The history of afternoon tea
• Afternoon tea in the various British colonies
• Afternoon tea in the colonies post-empire
• The current state of afternoon tea

Although short, I found the book to be very interesting. Unlike Rappaport in A Thirst for Empire, Skinner is not interested in refuting the conventional role of The Duchess of Bedford in afternoon tea. It seems like for her, she accepts that the Duchess codified and popularised the practice; as such, we don’t really see much about the link between tea parties and the temperance movement of that time.

The second and third chapters of the book focus heavily on the history of the British ex-colonies. I’m actually a bit doubtful about this description of British intervention in Assam, that “the result was an entire region of the subcontinent altered to support a non-native monoculture, creating an industry that continues to this day”. The word that I want to quibble with here is “non-native” because while the British did try to bring in foreign tea plants via Robert Fortune, these tea plants did not thrive in Assam but in Darjeeling. From what I understand (and I’m open to correction), the tea plants that grow in Assam are the Camellia sinensis var. assamica, a variant that is actually native to the region.

The countries that Skinner focuses on are:

• India
• United States
• Australia
• Malta
• Kenya
• South Africa

And here arises another wish I had for the book – I wish Skinner also included one of the South East Asian ex-colonies (thinking mostly of Singapore and Malaysia), or the East-Asian ex-colony of Hong Kong because it might have been worthwhile to see how British ideas of afternoon tea interacted with Chinese tea culture. Plus, tea is actually native to Myanmar, another former British colony and it would be interesting to see foreign and native tea-taking cultures interact. This is especially so since in the case of places like Malta, tea was neither grown there, it was “not clear whether it was being consumed by Maltese locals as well as the newly arrived English residents”, and currently, afternoon tea seems to be more common in hotels. In which case, I wonder if there would be more material/value in adding on a different colony (though I appreciate that Malta is the only Mediterranean colony that is covered in this book, hence the wish to add on because I think more can be done!).

By the way, the copious discussion on afternoon tea in hotels made me realise that I’ve misjudged hotel naming practices! I’ve long complained about how afternoon teas are misnamed because a lot of places call “high tea” (and everyone seems to believe that the “high” in “high tea” refers to “high class”) but Skinner has made me realise that the name may be right! High tea has always been a more substantial meal (though perhaps not as well-plated as in a hotel) and given how filling some hotel high teas are, the name may be very apt.

Overall, while Afternoon Tea did not help me resolve my mystery, it did give me some insight into the history and practice of afternoon tea not just in Britain but in other parts of the world as well. While I would have liked the book to be slightly longer, there’s still a lot to chew on and it would make a good companion to an actual afternoon tea as well.

P.s. after reading this book, I decided to look into the case of afternoon tea in Singapore and you can follow that mini journey on substack.