Is high tea still a thing?

Nobody with a maid would have a clue what High tea was, because they would be having dinner later. High tea was a meal eaten by those for whom it was the last meal of the day, and generally was only eaten on highdays and holidays, not every day. It frequently, especially in summer, included a tin of salmon.

The dictionary definition is: a meal eaten in the late afternoon or early evening, typically consisting of a cooked dish, bread and butter, and tea.

Exactly Cold you have it right.

What is a highday, please?
(So I know when to have a high tea!)

we would have high tea on Saturdays either at a restuarant in Glasgow or at home,typically fish and chips or gammon steak with chips bread ,butter and pots of tea and a selection of cakes and scones after.Supper in our house was sandwiches or cheese pudding or if somebody would walk to the bakers fresh hot rolls and chips from the chip shop .Strangely we were all thin

Highdays and Holidays: "What is a highday"? - Good question!

Perhaps it's a day that is celebrated but which is not a proper day-off-work holiday. Birthdays, Guy Fawkes night, Valentine's Day, Hallowe'en. Or perhaps it's a holiday that's not religious - Queen's birthday or Coronation day, or New Year's Day.

If anyone can explain, please post on another thread!

As for making the tea by boiling the water with the tea in it on the hob, I only learned last week from an Irish and a Scottish friend that they both said that that was how their mothers made it back in the day.

I remember in my childhood at the weekend in the summer we had crisp lettuce, cucumber, lovely smelling tomatoes, a slice of tasty ham and a round of white bread and butter and a nice big dollop of salad cream and we called that tea. Plus a pot of tea.

I had only heard of high tea in books and didn’t really know what it was, so have been fascinated with the social history that has been posted here
Growing up we had 3 meals which were Breakfast,Lunch and Dinner. occasionally if we had visitors we would have afternoon tea as well, which was sandwiches, cakes and a pot of tea.
When visiting my paternal grandparents we were served afternoon tea which I loved as it involved two kinds of leaf tea, Lapsong and Earl Grey, and different little sandwiches, several cakes and often fresh scones! As my mother was not one for sweet foods we rarely had tea at home so this was a real treat.
If we had eaten dinner and then been out to a play or similar, on return we had a light supper, this was something like a few sandwiches and fruit or cheese and biscuits.

There's posh jenpax I grew up in Yorkshire where we had breakfast ( pronounced brake fast) dinner at midday then tea at 6pm. Supper was a movable feast.
I think high tea is probably something remembered only by an older generation, I haven't heard the term used for years.
I remember it as being a veritable feast though with a cooked dish and cake or trifle.

Definition of high days and holidays: - special occasions.

....which, I suppose, means that a high tea is a special tea for a special occasion

I think the names of meals vary according to the part of the country. Growing up, we had breakfast, dinner , tea, and, once we stayed up a bit later, supper. Dinner was a two course cooked meal around 12.30 and my mum continued this until her dying day. Tea when we were little was bread and spread and cake. Supper might be a drink and a biscuit or fruit cake.
As we grew older we came home from school absolutely starving, so tea became more substantial, something on toast or a salad, followed by bread and jam and cake or tinned fruit. Never called high tea, though in our house. We were poor, not posh.
Nowadays, we have a salad or sandwich at lunch time, and a cooked main course at night, sometimes followed by a yoghurt, with a snack later on, fruit or cheese and biscuits, or just a drink.

On Sundays we revert to a traditional roast dinner at 1pm, then a cup of tea and cake at 4pm, to keep us going till 7 or 8pm when we have ham rolls( we call it Sunday supper, though DH says Sabbath rolls ).
I hate the term “supper” to mean an evening meal, as it is in the south.

Dutch friends now invite us for High Wine, instead of High (i.e. afternoon) Tea. A glass of often sparkling wine, with cheese and nibbles, followed by fresh quiche and salad, then fruit tart. I like this version!

Tea for me is a cup of tea and cake or sandwich at about 3,30pm to bridge the gap between lunch and evening meal which we named supper which was served at 6 - 7 p.m.

We never had 'high tea', or at least we never called it that. It was just our tea and it was a cooked meal. We had our dinner in the middle of the day. At school we had school dinner, presided over by 'dinner ladies'. On Sundays we had Sunday dinner in the middle of the day. Lunch was something we'd heard of, vaguely, but was for posh people down south. We are northern from working class stock in Lancashire.

My husband's parents, also working class from the very traditional North East, never varied their eating routine:

Breakfast (cooked)
Ten o'clock (not elevenses! Coffee and a biscuit.)
Dinner at midday (meat, two veg, potatoes, yorkshires, gravy, pudding and custard)
Tea at 4pm (cakes, scones and a cup of tea)
Supper at 7.30pm (cold meat or corned beef pie and salad, bread and butter)

They never varied this, unless unavoidable, and never ate between meals. They were fit and slim! In the Northumberland village, where they lived, the place was a ghost town if you passed through at midday. Everyone was indoors sitting down to their dinner.

When I was young, we had a lovely book of Scottish poems, readings etc, with one of my favourites being called "An Aberdeen High Tea" which I always read, unable to stop uncontrollable laughter - I thought it was an exaggeration, but when I visited my Aberdonian aunts discovered that it was absolutely true! Love a real high tea.

Not in my neck of the woods

In Oz "High Tea" has become quite a special event in recent years with lots of upmarket restaurants, hotels and Galleries offering High Tea. Definitely no sausages but a variety of teas, bubbly, delicious cakes and tiny savoury treats beautifully served on multi-tiered platters. All lots of fun. ???

That would be afternoon tea in my book Apricity. Funny how things evolve isn't it.

More afternoon tea with bells on it, sodapop.

Someone further back mentioned a woman told her she was making tea wrong. I used to work in Germany and we had a man who made our tea for us. He had a huge teapot to which he boiled water, sugar, milk and sugar together! Yuck it was horrendous but none of us wanted to offend him by saying anything.

PS the worst cup of tea I had was in a cafe in Scotland. I was handed a paper cup full of hot water, a tea bag, and a stick to stir it.

I do like the idea of High Wine
Think I will adopt this Icyalittle

In our family it's Breakfast, Lunch and if eating late it's Dinner, early Tea time.

And supper but only if we had a tea time ? confused you will be.

I only ever heard of high tea being served in hotels. At home, it was just your tea! I don’t remember when I last saw one being offered, either in a restaurant or a hotel.