"high tea" ain't
 

Just thought I'd repost this warning.. I know most of you already know it,
but some of the swankier places at which I've been dining have advertised a
"high" tea which, of course, is afternoon tea. Here's yet another essay on
how calling low tea high tea marks you as a pitiable lout.

From restaurantreport.com:

Tea
(Or, Why I Almost Never Drink It In Restaurants)
by Barbara Ann Rosenberg
"Don't miss high tea at the Ritz!" urged - - no, commanded, my
(purportedly) most sophisticated friend, as I headed out the door many years
ago, bound for London for my very first visit to that fascinating city.

As it turned out she was wrong, very wrong in her advice! No one at that
plus ultra of elegance hotel, the Ritz, would be caught dead having "high
tea", except one of the porters, perhaps...or a scullery maid! It seems that
"high tea" is the working class equivalent of "supper" at which meal
"ordinary folks" eat such things as "bangers and mash" (translates as "hot
dogs and mashed potatoes") or Shephard's pie (lamb stew with some kind of
crust)...certainly not the exquisite, refined food for which the Ritz (and
its stellar chef, David Nicholls) are noted.

What my friend had in mind was, actually, "afternoon tea", a ritual of the
upper class (or "would be" upper class) folks who regularly indulge in a
repast of teeny-weeny sandwiches concocted of such delectable things as
watercress and shrimp pate followed by assorted teeny-weeny decorated
pastries in fanciful shapes - - and a pot of properly brewed tea.

[etc. blathering]