When is teatime? This surprisingly contentious mealtime has an obscure past. Historically, whether you took tea in the morning, afternoon or evening said a lot about your class.

Anna Maria Russell, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, is the woman credited with the invention of afternoon tea in the 1840s. In the days when the English upper classes ate lunch around noon and dinner at eight o’clock, tea – taken with bread and butter and some cake – combated “that sinking feeling” around four or five in the afternoon, according to Russell.

This afternoon repast was sometimes known as ‘little tea’ for the small amount of food consumed, or ‘low tea’ as it was taken casually, on low tables beside armchairs rather than at a formal dining table. But Russell merely popularised it – she was not its inventor, argues historian Steven Moore. “There are dozens of references to afternoon tea long, long before that… [crediting Russell] suits a narrative.”

So why is the duchess the figurehead for afternoon tea? As a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, Russell was a known influencer at court, which lends some weight to her ability to popularise an activity like afternoon tea; it is also thanks to an 1842 letter written by then-famous actress Fanny Kemble about taking afternoon tea with the duchess at Belvoir Castle – which Kemble believes to be completely novel – that consolidates the origin story.

High tea, on the other hand, was a meal taken by the working to middle classes in the evening while sat at a ‘high’ dining table. Dominated by savoury food like pies, cheese and potatoes (washed down with a pot of tea, of course), high tea was also known as ‘meat tea’* in wealthier households, where meat was prominent, and is what we would now call dinner – though there’s still a handful of older people who’ll call this mealtime ‘tea’.

But language evolves and here in Australia we’re less concerned about the historic meaning of these terms and use ‘afternoon tea’ and ‘high tea’ interchangeably to mean a meal comprised of an array of small baked goods accompanied by tea. In fact, high tea is the term used more frequently as it’s often served in the morning. The ‘high’ these days refers to the tiered stands on which the baked goods sit, and tea is not even a mandatory part of the meal – coffee and booze are on offer too.

If the Duchess of Bedford didn’t invent afternoon tea, who did? A good candidate is Russian-born Anastasie Klustine, better known as Parisian salon host Madame De Circourt, writes Elizabeth Soos, founder of Auersmont School of Etiquette and Protocol. Whoever it was, we raise our teacups and stoke our appetites for them.

*Confusingly, ‘meat tea’ is also the term for a broth of meat, usually beef, boiled in water. Products like Bovril, when diluted, make a beef tea.

References:

• A Social History of Tea by Jane Pettigrew and Bruce Richardson (2014)
• ‘The Origins Of Afternoon Tea – Madame De Circourt’ by Elizabeth Soos
• The True History of Tea by Victor Mair and Erling Hoh (2009)
• ‘Why The Duchess of Bedford did not invent afternoon tea’ by Steven Moore

This article originally appeared in AUSTCS enews 12 November 2024.