Is high tea still a thing?

It's very much alive and kicking in Scotland, alongside afternoon tea. I wouldn't recommend having both on the same day.

People's eating habits have changed so much nowadays, particularly in relation to food and ingredients from other countries. I can remember when spaghetti
bolognese or moussaka seemed rather out of the ordinary and curry or chinese food was exotic. High tea brings thoughts to me of the whole family coming together and enjoying a meal with homemake cakes. Everyone's off doing things or looking at their phones.

What irritates me though is how Americans think/confuse
High Tea with afternoon tea. Presumably because 'High' Tea sounds posher, like 'high society'. What really got up my nose once was when a woman told me I was making tea wrong. Apparently, while doing a college exchange course at Oxford someone in the college made tea by boiling teabags on the stove top in boiling water. She instructed me that I was making tea all wrong and that was the correct way it should me made. grr.

We never had anything called High tea we had breakfast dinner at midday and tea at 4 or 5 if you were hungry before going to bed we had a biscuit and milk which was supper
High tea was what I would call posh I can imagine the queen would have high tea with cakes on a cake stand thin cucumber sandwiches and tea in pots We were working class and just had ordinary teatime no Highs or lows

High tea was always something cooked and tea wasn't.

I first had high tea aged about 8, on holiday in Scarborough with my aunt uncle and cousin. I felt it was quite posh and we were given things I'd never had at home, especially at around 4 in the afternoon. We were well fed at home but it was all plain dinners and home baking on a weekend. Since I've got older I'd be happy to bring back high teas. I hate eating late evening now. That would also mean I could have a hot drink and a little snack at bedtime!

I have lived in both England and Scotland and can confirm that there are differences. In England there was always afternoon tea at 4pm. This would be a cup of tea and a sandwich. I think it was invented for posh people to have something between early lunch and late dinner, which was served about 8pm. Whereas in Scotland tea (just called tea I think) is anytime when people come home, so 5 - 6pm and is a proper meal but with cups of tea and bread. Then before bed, there is something called supper which is a snack. I've been caught out by expecting to be fed and just getting a snack

I think High Tea is the English name for what the Scots call tea. Dinner in Scotland is at midday and is what the English call lunch.

There seems to be a lot of confusion these days between high tea and afternoon tea. I agree that some people think that high tea is "posher" when really it's the other way around:
- high tea = a late afternoon or early evening cooked meal with a hot dish, bread and butter, cake and a pot of tea
- afternoon tea = a mid afternoon cold meal/snack of sandwiches, scones, cake and tea

I remember high tea from being on holiday as a child in the 1960s. Many places served it as an earlier meal for families (as opposed to adult only dinner). Often the hot dish would be fish and chips, meat pie, sausages or roast

I agree with Cold nothing to do with degrees of poshness
The description given is exactly right as I remember it.

Cold, that's how I think of high tea, a more substantial late afternoon, early evening meal. I think it came from when
labourers came home from the fields and needed something fairly substantial, hence the cakes and bread. Afternoon tea a lighter afternoon affair with cucumber sandwiches and (in our case, fish paste sandwiches) with crusts cut off and lighter cakes and / or scones. We would have this when relatives came over or if away on holiday. Otherwise, tea was a cuppa with a biscuit. When I was small, my mother would sometimes just call dinner, tea though it was a typical evening meal.

Yes wotnot, a substantial cold tea, served of course, with tea. We’d have ham, cheese or egg sandwiches, salad (my mother was ahead of her time), home made fruit cake and sometimes, cheese with a sliced apple and brown bread. Scones of course. I love high tea and sometimes we have it before we go to see the national theatre, live, at the cinema - fabulous

Restaurants by me tend to offer High Tea between about 4pm and 6:30/7pm. Then they move on to a dinner menu.

Well we never called it high or low it was just tea and school nights it would be cooked but weekends when we had a cooked dinner tt was sandwiches and maybe fruit and cream or a piece of cake

Same for me, bluebelle.
I've no idea what's high or low.

I should have said a cooked dinner at dinner time ( midday)

wotnot I so agree re Americans calling afternoon tea high tea!!

As a child. tea was what we had everyday, bread and spread and one slice of cake.

'High' tea was just a more substantial tea meal that included something hot and savoury like something on toast and probably a second cake. We did not have it at home but did sometimes get it when we went out. It my experience it was mainly served on Sundays.

My older Scottish relatives made high tea when we visited and my mother sometimes did it at weekends. I didn't know anyone else who made high tea in the south. I've not come across it for years and wasn't aware it still existed. I never had it or seen it advertised in a restaurant or hotel.
I've never had afternoon tea at home either, it was only for the upper class originally, and is a fairly new development at hotels.

I believe the 'high' tag was added to indicate a meal that was eaten at a proper (high) table, necessary because this was a hot meal to be eaten with a knife and fork.

Afternoon tea, on the other hand, was taken in the sitting room, with the tea and finger food - sandwiches and cakes -served on a low, occasional table.

Our evening meal was tea and as we usually had it at 5.30, it presumably counted as afternoon tea. The advantage of a tea, bread and spread and cake meal is that it is an economical evening meal when money is tight.

I think the purpose of afternoon tea was to fill the very long gap between eating lunch between 12.00 - 1.00 and not having the evening meal until 8.00pm or later.

All this rubbish about 'posh'meals and 'ordinary' meals. The meals people eat and when or how have always varied over time and with region, culture and job patterns.

There are often adverts in Scotland for bus tours, stopping for "High tea" at various hotels.
In my experience , high tea involved a hot main course( fish and chips/ steak pie), bread and butter, a pot of tea and cakes.
It was usually on offer between 4pm and early evening.
We always referred to lunch as dinner and dinner as tea.
Afternoon tea consists of sandwiches and various cakes.
I suppose your interpretation depends on what area of the country you were brought up.

Bathsheba, I agree with you, 'high' relates to the height of the table.It was a substantial meal eaten by working classes after the day's work. The upper classes then adopted the term for a meal they could have when the servants were not about, that they could serve themselves and was a combo of their afternoon tea and the working class high tea.

I always thought that high tea was sandwiches and cakes

www.thespruce.com/afternoon-vs-high-tea-difference-435327

I didn't mind what It's called, as long as there is cake involved.?

MissAdventure we come from the same background I honestly never have heard of high tea until recently and my thoughts went immediately to a maid in a mob cap serving thin cucumber sandwiches and cakes on a stand and tea to drink
We were plain folk breakfast, dinner, tea and maybe a supper ( biscuit and milk) if needed