Atlantica - 01.12.2006, Side 48

46 AT L A N T I CA
but when my London-dwelling friend e-mailed
me to suggest that we go to afternoon tea at
Claridge’s while I was in town, my regression was
instantaneous.
Roaring fireplaces. Tea. Duck hunting. Tea.
Witty banter and lives that did not include thighs
sticking to vinyl car seats while stuck in freeway
traffic on a hot day in January. Tea.
That first afternoon, I stepped into Le Comptoir
Gascon, a small French deli with gold walls and
rustic wooden tables in the Smithfield neigh-
borhood, an enclave of foodie-dom that abuts
a large commercial meat market. An employee
wandered directly over to see if I needed any help
making sense of the wine wall. I picked his brain
about tea instead.
“I don’t think anyone is really interested in
afternoon tea but old ladies,” said Tim Leckie,
a 30-something Australian immigrant wearing
white Converse sneakers and a work apron.
Ouch. Was tea totally lost on younger genera-
tions? Wasn’t somebody in a place like this trying
to do something new with it?
“People our age have tried to reinvent the after-
noon tea, but it hasn’t worked,” Leckie answered.
He could tick off every institution of the British
food renaissance in the greater London area
– The Fat Duck in Oxfordshire, St. John Bread and
Wine, Smiths of Smithfield up the street.
But, according to Leckie, tea was not invited to
join the British food revolution. He said the tradi-
tion of taking everyday tea had been replaced by
having a beer at lunch followed by a strong cup
of coffee at work. “The places doing traditional
afternoon tea are doing it best.”
Taken as a nation, tea is still the drink of
choice in the UK, where 165 million cups are
consumed a day, versus 70 million cups of cof-
fee. The weekend I was there, an aggressive PR
campaign had just been launched on the Tube by
the United Kingdom Tea Council extolling the
healthy virtues of tea as an antioxidant along the
order of other unexpectedly healthy foods like
chocolate and red wine. “Four Cups a Day,” went
the slogan.
Clearly, people are still drinking tea, but, I
wondered, do real, live Londoners take part in the
ceremony of afternoon tea that I’d worshipped
as a kid?
THE FAMED FOOD FLOOR at Harrods seemed
like as good a place as any to see what kind of tea
“I don’t think anyone is inter-
ested in afternoon tea
but old ladies.”
LONDONa
Tea at Ladureé.
044-51 LondonAtl606.indd 46 18.10.2006 22:34:32