The Tearoom - Part 4 - Menus and Pairings

After musing about tearooms of my past in Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I should get down to the question of menus and pairings. 

A casual perusal of afternoon tea menus available on the web reveals some basic patterns for the traditional English afternoon tea.

The first is that black tea, for example a Ceylon tea, is traditional. So are finger sandwiches with cucumber or smoked salmon. If you eat one of these finger sandwiches, the flavor of the tea will be eclipsed, at least for a little while: cucumber and salmon activate the cool/cold receptors and the fat in them will inactivate the hot receptors— which the black tea activates, so something has to give. Usually it will be the tea—it will be like drinking so much hot water.

Another common accompaniment: scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Strawberry and oolong go well together because they activate the warm receptors, but not strawberry and black tea—one or the other will dominate. In the presence of clotted cream with its fat content, it will be the tea again that disappears. Now with raspberry jam, you have a very different situation: raspberry ketone activates both the warm and the hot receptors, so in the presence of a black tea (which also has raspberry ketone in it!), the overall effect will be delightful: the tea and fruit will stand out, while the fat will cut some of the astringency of the tea.

A proposal: if you serve an afternoon tea, serve it in courses, with different teas to go with each course, for example green tea with the cucumber sandwiches, an oolong with a scone with strawberry jam, and a black tea with brownies and raspberries. That way each tea will have a chance to shine, while your food will taste all the more delicious.

Pictured below (couldn't resist a little more musing): not the huge groaning table of five-o’clock high tea for maybe twenty plus people that I enjoyed as a child at my parent’s friends' home when we we lived in Uruguay…more intimate but pretty close and one you can get now in Punta del Este, at B Restaurant & Bar (http://www.brb.com.uy/galeria/):