下午茶介绍英文

Afternoon tea is a small meal snack typically eaten between 3pm and 5pm. The custom of afternoon tea originated in England in the 1840s.[2]Traditionally, loose tea is brewed in a teapot and served with milk and sugar. The sugar and caffeine of the concoction provided fortification against afternoon doldrums for the working poor of 19th and early 20th century England who had a significantly lower calorie count and more physically demanding occupation than most Westerners today. For laborers, the tea was sometimes accompanied by a small sandwich or baked snack (such as scones) that had been packed for them in the morning. For the more privileged, afternoon tea was accompanied by luxury ingredient sandwiches(customarily cucumber, egg and cress, fish paste, ham, and smoked salmon), scones (with clotted cream and jam, see cream tea) and usually cakes and pastries (such as Battenberg cake, fruit cake or Victoria sponge). In hotels and tea shops the food is often served on a tiered stand; there may be no sandwiches, but bread or scones with butter or margarine and optional jam or other spread, or toast, muffins or crumpets.[3][4][5]Nowadays, a formal afternoon tea is usually taken as a treat in a hotel or tea shop.[citation needed] In everyday life, many Britons take a much simpler refreshment consisting of tea (and occasionallybiscuits) as one of many short tea breaks throughout the day.[citation needed] Most quality hotels in Britain serve afternoon tea, sometimes in a palm court, and more recently have offered the option of champagne instead of tea.[6]While visiting Belvoir Castle, Anna Maria Russell, Duchess of Bedford, is credited as the first person to have transformed afternoon tea in England into a late-afternoon meal rather than a simple refreshment.[7][dubious – discuss]Isabella Beeton, whose books on home economics were widely read in the 19th century, describes afternoon teas of various kinds: the old-fashioned tea, the at-home tea, the family tea and the high tea and provides menus.[8]