IN the absence of the President, Jean Davies welcomed members to the April meeting.

After concluding the business meeting, the speaker for the evening, Eileen Dilley, was introduced. Her talk informed members of The Social History of Afternoon Tea, a subject that she was well qualified to speak on as she had won the Egon Ronay’s Tea Place of the Year Award in 1987.

Mrs Dilley took members back 3,000 years to when the Emperor and herbalist Shen Nung woke from his afternoon rest and found that leaves from the plant Camellia sinensis had dropped into his cauldron. He had brewed the first pot of tea!

It was many years later when tea was made popular in Britain by Catherine of Braganza when she came to England to marry King Charles, but the cost of the beverage was so high that only the very wealthy could afford to drink it.

By Victorian times the tax on the importation of tea had been greatly reduced and it became more widely drunk.

Mrs Dilley had brought with her a delightful array of china. tea caddies, caddie spoons and many more items that were used for afternoon tea which members were able to look at.

The meeting on May 8 is Resolutions and AGM.