Have to admit, the title is associated with a special romantic mood and it should be so. Because I don't think about everyday tea here, usually drunk after lunch, but having one - which is brewed and served differently - is just the main element of the party. Of course, it is not always in two, it can be three or four people, but no more.
With afternoon tea - it is best to invite everyone to 5 in the afternoon - an intimate and warm atmosphere should be created. The most beautiful decoration of such a "party” it is real - a humming samovar or a fireplace - an inseparable prop of an English home. Probably the right model to follow (I don't mean the fireplace here, but about tea), because in no country in the world will there be so many kinds of tea and so many dishes to brew it, what in England.
Careful compliance with "tea time” there is already the proverbial, The English do not give up a cup of tea, even under the hail of bullets at the front, not to mention such banal obstacles, like traveling by car or plane.
The Russians also drink a lot of tea and, strange to say, they don't like tea brewed in the English way, and vice versa. At the same time, the English feel a strange respect for drinking samovar tea, considering it some special Eastern mystery, associated with the climate and a bit with the Orthodox Church. It is probably the influence of great literature and the mystery of the "Russian soul."”, which fascinates Anglo-Saxons enormously. A classic addition to English tea are small home-baked cookies or toasts from special bread thinly smeared with butter and not too sweet jam. That's all.
With tea brewed in the Russian way - and in Poland this is how it is drunk, admittedly without a samovar - preserves are the most stylish, but if we want to give something more, we will bake a homemade cake or cookies, Gingerbreads, sweet rusks or prepare toasts. On cold winter afternoons, we can offer our guest a glass of rum for tea or a glass of grog before tea, which will warm us up just as much, as if we were sitting by a crackling fire.
And if someone doesn't drink tea at all? Then we invite you for "a cup of coffee for two”, though it sounds much worse.
