I'm just curious. I was reading a story set in England last night in which a man was going to propose to a woman, but he arrived right at the hour for tea, and decided he didn't want to go because he didn't want to listen to her prattle about whether the tea was weak or strong and other mundane things about tea.

Anyway, it made me wonder: Do most Brits still take tea at a certain hour every day? Is it still a formal affair?

All I know is my Aunt travels to England twice a year and she talks of afternoon teas every day. The way you hear her go on, everything practically comes to a stand still for tea time

Tea is actually a meal and as near as I can tell it equates to our dinner... sort of. It was served around 5:00 with the family I stayed with and could vary greatly in offerings.

Where's FredPuli?

WE have Tea breaks in mid afternoon ,sometimes called Afternoon break about 2:30, Morning break is about 10:30.
Dinner time (Lunch) is about 1:00.
And Teatime is 5 to 6 o'clock.
Can vary wildly nowadays because of work arrangments. Supper @9:00 PM is often substituted as quote:an "Evening Meal" if you are in a Hotel ect(Breakfast is often skipped)
The general times I've given are roughly Correct
Tea-Time used to be called High Tea until the 1940s by the British Middle and Upper classes But nearly everybody now calls it Tea or Teatime
Heres a good explanation from a UK Primary elementary school site.

Tea time has more than one meaning in England. Afternoon Tea is normally served around about 4pm and would consist of tea, sandwiches and cake, or possibly a Cornish tea consisting of tea, scone with jam and cream. It was more common in more leisurely days when less women worked. These days it tends to be a meal you might have when on holiday and touring round the country as lots of picturesque places have tea rooms that serve afternoon tea.

Aminator2002's answer of tea as a meal served at around 5pm as equating to dinner is more common in the industrial north when the workers in the mills used to return from work and the children were home from school and the family would eat their meal together. I used to eat tea as a child in Yorkshire and we ate our dinner at lunch time. I then moved to London as a young adult and dinner was eaten in the evening. Now at an older age I am back in the North, in Lancashire, and most of my colleagues talk about their evening meal as being tea.

But in answer to your original question, no we don't normally have tea as a formal meal these days as described in your book.

Fleetgold has it (and welcome to Answerpool FG ! ).

As so often in England our language is a social and sometimes geographical indicator.

I was brought up in and reside in the South so what follows has that geographical 'bias'. (Bedstor and Fleetgold both post from the North )

Tea is taken at teatime viz. 4pm to 5pm and is tea, the drink, with cakes, bread and jam or sandwiches or toasted teacakes etc. The more leisured classes have something called 'high tea' too ,the early evening meal taken later and designed , so far as I can tell, primarily for the feeding of young children who are too young for a dinner. So that meal has something cooked included.Its role is therefore somewhat similar to that of 'tea' for the working class of the North . (One's nanny would supervise 'high tea' though Mama might deign to be present . Now one finds it is the au pair in charge and Mummy is at work )

It would be a mistake to think of tea at 4pm to be the preserve of the 'upper classes'. When time permits e.g during shopping, every class takes time for tea and so the restaurants and cafes in the larger British supermarkets cater for that .

The other great British meal is 'elevenses'. This is taken at 11 am. It usually consists of tea with biscuits (cookies). This is universally observed wherever practical. Even workers on the factory floor would expect 'tea breaks' and one would occur at that time,even if not at others. You'll often find here that builders working on your house extension or new plumbing will take a tea-break at about 11 am. In large offices there is still the 'tea-trolley' to be found; this is wheeled around at 11 am and again at 4pm, and the operator, usually a 'tea lady' serves hot tea etc to the staff .

In the North 'tea', as explained already, in the speech of the industrial working class means the same as supper (or dinner; see below), a cooked meal for adults at which children are present. This usage does occur in the South but is not so common.

As we are on the topic of meals , let's consider 'supper', 'lunch' and 'dinner' too. For the working class 'dinner' is the meal at 1pm. For the rest it is the main meal of the evening except on Sundays, when it is taken at lunchtime; lunch is taken at 1pm !The explanation is that 'dinner' signified the main meal of the day, which, for working people once meant the meal at 1pm but for the rest was the big evening meal.

'Supper' simply indicates an evening meal which is not as substantial as dinner. So on Sunday there is supper in the evening, even for those who take 'dinner' in the evening for the rest of the week . Confusing ain't it ?

You may guess correctly that snobs and the socially aware in Britain can spot someone who is of working class origin simply by his or her use of the words 'tea' and 'dinner', particularly the latter. Someone seeking to conceal their origins is alive to 'tea' but 'dinner' , lunch' and 'supper' may slip their attention. (If that sounds bad.....it can be! However we may try to deny it, such markers, and many far more subtle ones, are logged , consciously or subconsciously by the English. We unwittingly place people in various grades of middle class and working class too. The good thing is that it generally matters not at all, certainly far, far less than it did in past decades. We still do it though !)

The French term for tea is 'le five o'clock'. This is an old usage.It is interesting in that it reflects how the old upper classes ate their evening meal later than we do now, so their tea was taken an hour later than we take it now.Either that or it reflects the fact that the French started lunch at 12 and only finished at 3 !

I Fred, up in'th North we av us tea at around five oclock. We don't call it dinner, thats f'th posh uns. Then we av a bite o' supper at eight-ish. Cheese on toast or summat like that. We like a broo too , no set times, but usually around 11 in'th mornin and agen at aboot 3ish!

Oh yeah, now it's perfectly clear.

I stayed with a family in Belfast so perhaps they treat tea differently. To me it certainly seemed like a meal and then we would have toast and cheese later so I guess my experience was pretty close to the Jenny Roberts version... or what I understood of it!

And remember this song...

quote:

EVERYTHING STOPS FOR TEA
Featured in Buchanan's 1935 comedy film, "Come Out Of The Pantry"
(Goodhart / Hoffman / Sigler)
Jack Buchanan


Every nation in creation has its favourite drink
France is famous for its wine, it's beer in Germany
Turkey has its coffee and they serve it blacker than ink
Russians go for vodka and England loves its tea

Oh, the factories may be roaring
With a boom-a-lacka, zoom-a-lacka, wee
But there isn't any roar when the clock strikes four
Everything stops for tea

Oh, a lawyer in the courtroom
In the middle of an alimony plea
Has to stop and help 'em pour when the clock strikes four
Everything stops for tea

It's a very good English custom
Though the weather be cold or hot
When you need a little pick-up, you'll find a little tea cup
Will always hit the spot

You remember Cleopatra
Had a date to meet Mark Anthony at three
When he came an hour late she said "You'll have to wait"
For everything stops for tea

Oh, they may be playing football
And the crowd is yelling "Kill the referee!"
But no matter what the score, when the clock strikes four
Everything stops for tea

Oh, the golfer may be golfing
And is just about to make a hole-in-three
But it always gets them sore when the clock yells "four!"
Everything stops for tea

It's a very good English custom
And a stimulant for the brain
When you feel a little weary, a cup'll make you cheery
And it's cheaper than champagne

Now I know just why Franz Schubert
Didn't finish his unfinished symphony
He might have written more but the clock struck four
And everything stops for tea

Wow! Thanks for your educational and highly entertaining answers! I'm so jealous - I think tea sounds like a great meal. Maybe I was born on the wrong continent.

You know, it's funny how meal titles can become so confusing. My family is Canadian and I remember actually FIGHTING with my cousins as a little girl over whether the evening meal is called "dinner" or "supper" (I the Yankee called it the former, but my Eastern Canadian cousins were willing to tackle me and give Indian burns to make me say the latter! I don't even want to talk about the kindergarten troubles they gave me for saying "lunch." Then of course I came home to the US after a summer in Canada and found myself being royally laughed at for the way I pronounced "flag" like "fleg" and pronounced "sorry" to rhyme with "lorry.")

quote:

Originally posted by bedstor:
And remember this song...

quote:

EVERYTHING STOPS FOR TEA
Oh, a lawyer in the courtroom
In the middle of an alimony plea
Has to stop and help 'em pour when the clock strikes four
Everything stops for tea

I should jolly well hope so ! Our regular court hours are 10.30 a.m. to 4 pm, so court hearings should end, at teatime, for the day . Shouldn't want the poor lawyer and the judge to be doing overtime !

And cricket must surely be the only game played internationally where play stops for tea, but then cricket was invented by the English and the internationals are always between countries formerly ruled by the British. The 'tea interval' is normally at two hours after the lunch interval,at about 3.45 pm. Play resumes after a suitable periodof at least half an hour ; the timing is agreed by the teams beforehand (Law 15).

And we even have a word for a light snack taken with tea at elevenses or midday. It is 'tiffin', from an Indian word meaning 'to sip'

Thankyou for the welcome FredPuli

I can remember staying in hotels as a child where high tea was served for families with young children and then dinner later on for 'grown-ups'. I also remember going out with my parents at the weekend and finishing the day with high tea at a restaurant or cafe as a treat. The meal consisted of dishes like ham and chips, omelette, salad, fish and chips, always served with bread and butter, and followed by cakes.

Aminator, sorry about my 'Northern accent'. If you knew my dad, this is how he spoke all the time. Perhaps Karrow could do a better one!

Shockingly, I understood it perfectly. I think working with Southsiders from Chicago makes me quite able to understand any accent in the world.

The = De, Them = Dem, These = Dese, Those = Dose, Over there = Overdere, By those things = by dem tings, What's that = was dat, Three = tree, Going for a drink = Gonna go git some beers, coffee = Joe, toilet = John.

BUT lunch = lunch and dinner = dinner... and almost no one drinks tea.

Wow! "Everything Stops For Tea" is the title track to one of my favorite albums of the 70's! It has just recently been issued on CD for the very first time, unfortunately Long John Baldry passed away just before it came out.

I am reminded, Fred & everyone, of the Sunderland coal miner who won the 'pools. He paid for his son to go to Harrow and stressed that the lad must learn to speak posh, as a matter of absolute priority. Just before the end of the Christmas term he arranged an appointment with the headmaster. "Ow's oor Willie deein' wi' 'is tarkin'?" Riposted the head, icily: "Divn't ye tark ter me 'boot yer lad!"