What is afternoon tea, exactly? Well, it means real tea like the English Breakfast, Ceylon, Indian, or Chinese and preferably loose leaf, brewed in a china pot, and usually served with china cups and saucers and silver spoons any time between 3 and 5:30 PM daily. In particularly grand places, there should be elegant finger foods on a three-tiered silver tea stand - bread and butter, and crust less cucumber, watercress, and egg sandwiches on the bottom, scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam in the middle, and fruitcake and fancies on top.

A formal afternoon tea is must for any tourist at least once while in London. It is a relaxing, drawn-out, civilized affair that usually consists of three courses, all elegantly served on delicate china - first, dainty finger sandwiches, then fresh-baked scones served with jam and deliciously decadent clotted, and then an array of bite-size sweets. All the while, an indulgent server keeps the pot of tea of your choice fresh at hand. Sometimes ports and aperitifs are on offer to accompany your final course. High tea, popular with the before-theater crowd, includes an extra serving or two, including a sandwich, making it, in essence, a light supper. Having tea is a quintessentially British experience. Jacket and tie are often required for gentlemen, and jeans and sneakers are usually frowned upon.

Brown's. a classic hotel where one of London’s best-known afternoon teas is served. Cafe at Sotheby's. is an experience not to be missed for afternoon tea at this handy getaway. Claridge's. a real gala experience, with liveried footmen proffering sandwiches, scones, and superior patisseries in the palatial yet genteel foyer. Fortnum & Mason. - the Queen's grocers, serve three set teas ceremoniously, standard afternoon tea, old-fashioned high tea, and champagne tea .Harrods is for people having sweet-teeth, the fourth-floor Georgian Restaurant at this ridiculously well-known department store has a high tea that will give you a sugar rush for a week Kandy Tea House. Is a delightful, Sri Lankan-run tiny tearoom, having cream tea with homemade scones, clotted cream, and jam, or afternoon tea with cucumber sandwiches. The Orangey at Kensington Palace is a Georgian, gorgeous, sunlight-flooded perfect place for tea. A visit to the Original Maids of Honour in the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens is incomplete without tea at Maids of Honour. At Patisserie Valerie at Sagne have decadent patisseries with afternoon tea at this ever-reliable, reasonably priced, and stylish café. The Ritz's huge, stagy, sometimes cold and overly formal Palm Court serves tiered cake stands, silver pots, a harpist, and Louis XVI chaises, plus a great deal of rococo gilt and glitz. The glamorous Thames-side hotel – the Savoy does one of the most pleasant teas.

The British Empire no longer comes to a grinding halt at 4pm with all of England rushing for their cuppa. The English still like a cup of tea in the afternoon, but in workaday London that tea is often consumed at desks piled high with papers. A proper sit-down tea is reserved mainly for those ladies-who-lunches and who like to follow lunch with fattening but delectable pastries in the late afternoon. Visitors also are fond of participating in this ritual.