Tea Party Diva - Life & Craft

Afternoon tea gatherings soon became popular in high society circles, in England, Europe and the U.S.A.

Etiquette Books of Times Past
Those in high society, and those hosting and attending more casual Afternoon Teas, called on etiquette books for guidelines. One of the best known British etiquette books was the 1922 Cassells Book of Etiquette.

Emily Post Etiquette - 1922
In the U.S.,when hostesses and guests needed etiquette guidance, they turned to Emily Post. In 1922 Post published a book, somewhat dauntingly entitled Etiquette in Society, In Business, In Politics and At Home.

While Emily Post wrote books on other topics, she soon became the arbiter of etiquette in the U.S.A.

Emily Post - Afternoon Tea Etiquette - 1922

Emily Post explains that the basics of the Afternoon Tea Table are the same whether
“…in the tiny… house of the newest bride, or in the drawing room of Mrs. Worldly of Great Estates.”

She does briefly mention another difference - that not everyone has a “butler with one or two footmen in his wake” to serve the Afternoon Tea.

The hostess sat behind the Afternoon Tea Table, from which she served the guests, with maids or friends to assist, if needed.

Emily Post’s 1922 Table Setting Etiquette

** This Afternoon Tea Table is set following
Post’s 1922 etiquette gudelines - outlined below.

** Afternoon Tea Table Photo from Emily Post’s 1922 Book
Etiquette in Society, In Business, In Politics and At Home

1922 Table Setting Guidelines

A cloth must always be first placed on the table, before putting down the tray. The tea cloth may be a yard, a yard and a half, or two yards square. It may barely cover the table, or it may hang half a yard over each edge. A yard and a quarter is the average size. A tea cloth can be colored, but the conventional one is of white linen, with little or much white needlework or lace, or both.

On this is put a tray big enough to hold everything except the plates of food. The tray may be a massive silver one that requires a footman with strong arms to lift it, or it may be of Sheffield or merely of effectively lacquered tin.

In any case, on it should be - a kettle which ought to be already boiling, with a spirit lamp under it, an empty tea-pot, a caddy of tea, a tea strainer and slop bowl, cream pitcher and sugar bowl, and, on a glass dish, lemon in slices.

A pile of cups and saucers and a stack of little tea plates, all to match, with a napkin (about 12 inches square, hemstitched or edged to match the tea cloth) folded on each of the plates, like the filling of a layer cake, complete the paraphernalia. Each plate is lifted off with its own napkin.

Then on the tea table, back of the tray, or on the shelves of a separate “curate,” a stand made of three small shelves, each just big enough for one good-sized plate, are always two, usually three, varieties of cake and hot breads.

Times Past