A perfectly set table, small delicous bites to eat, freshly steeped tea and girlfriends to chat the afternoon away with. That's High Tea! One of my favorite things to do with my girlfriends is attend High Tea. This was a yearly tradition for us until COVID hit last year. We'd get dressed up and head to a hotel in Downtown Portland and treat ourselves to tea and delicious treats. With restrictions still in full swing, I got tired of waiting to be able to have this experience again, so I hosted a High Tea at my home and it was a lot easier to throw together than you may think!
First, start with your menu. I did a little scouring of the internet to see what the most popular types of tea sandwhiches were. I finally landed on three (of course you can choose to make as many or as little as you'd like).
Cucumber + herbed cream chese (store bought, philiadelphia chive and herb cream chese).
Smoked salmon + dill + lemon cream cheese (I bought the smoked salmon at the grocery story. I used fresh dill but you could use dried. For the lemon cream cheese I used plain cream these and added a small amount of lemon zest).
Ham + brie + mustard (I used deli sliced ham, spreadable brie and dijon mustard).
Each one was super simple and making six sandwhiches total took me no more than an hour. I've found the best type of bread for tea sandwhiches is a fluffy white bread, I used sourdough. I assemble each sandwhich with thin layers of each ingredient (since you'll be eating several of them I don't stack a ton of ingreidents on each) then cut the crusts off and cut them in fours. If you're making them ahead of time and need to store them for a bit, layer them in a tupperware container with a VERY lightly damp paper towel. This will ensure that the bread doesn't get crusty.
Traditionally, High Tea is served with scones. I'm lucky enough to have a friend that's an amazing cook so she brought two different types of scones. If you don't feel like baking your own scones from 100% scratch, I'd suggest buying the Fair Scone baking mix. It's my go to! You literally only have to add water.
Now the fun part, what to serve with the scones! I LOVE lemon curd, so that's my go to. But there's so many options;
Devonshire Cream (a really thick super amazing cream)
Jam or preserves
Butter
Lemon or lime curd
Whipped cream
Honey
So what are we missing? Tea of course! My favorite tea maker is Smith Tea, but you can choose whatever tea you'd like. For our High Tea, we had it at around 1:30 in the afternoon so Smith Tea's British Brunch was the perfect choice for me.
Now all you need to do it light some candles, boil water and you're ready for High Tea!
