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Finger sandwich rules: crusts off, cut AFTER filling, cucumber salted and drained first (soggy bread has ended friendships). Scones: make or buy the morning of: they stale by teatime tomorrow. Cream then jam or jam then cream is Devon vs Cornwall: seat rivals apart. A hotel afternoon tea runs GBP 30-60 a head: the homemade version costs a fiver and the cake stand does the glamour.
What The Afternoon Tea Calculator Works Out
- The spread: a scone and a half, four finger sandwiches and a slice of cake per guest for the classic sitting, scaled down 20% when dinner follows and up 20% when the tea is the meal. Eight guests therefore want a dozen scones and forty fingers.
- Shopping list: each finger is a third of a full sandwich, so two sandwich loaves disappear quickly; add about 30g of clotted cream and 40g of jam per guest and one eight-slice cake per eight guests. Cucumber, egg mayonnaise, smoked salmon and coronation chicken are the orthodox quartet.
- The tea itself: one pot per three guests, kept refreshed: one proper black blend, one caffeine-free, one citrus-adjacent covers every constituency.
- Children (advanced): counted as half an appetite for the food and half price at the hotel, but a full seat for the tea and cups.
- Gluten-free guests (advanced): works out a separate plate of GF scones and fingers on GF bread so coeliac guests get the full tiered experience, prepared on a separate board.
- Fizz (advanced): one bottle per five glasses for the adults, at your bottle price (supermarket prosecco GBP 7 to GBP 10, cava similar, champagne GBP 20 plus). Prosecco upgrades the sitting to royale tier.
- Total cost and saving versus the hotel (advanced): homemade afternoon tea costs about GBP 5 a head in ingredients; hotels charge GBP 30 to GBP 60. The saving for eight guests is typically GBP 250 or more, and the cake stand performs the markup's theatre for free.
- Teabags and milk (advanced): 2.5 cups a guest over a two-hour sitting, one bag per cup, and 30ml of milk per cup so the jugs do not run dry.