Have your cake and drink it too with Revolution Bar’s delicious tipsy afternoon tea. Available at over 40 locations across the UK, its parTEA time in every corner of the nation. Combine a tasty array of indulgent sweet and savoury bites with a refreshing cocktail of your choice for an all-round treat for the taste buds. Savour a platter of coronation chicken and prawn marie-rose sandwiches, scrumptious scones with a generous serving of clotted cream and jam, finger-licking cupcakes with swirly buttercream icing, a colourful selection of macaroons and rich chocolate brownies. Wash it all down with a cocktail chosen from Revolution Bars vast menu of fruity, floral, bitter and boozy offerings. Alt A has teamed up with Red Letter Days to bring you this exclusive experience. https://www.redletterdays.co.uk/experience/ref/xrevt/a-cocktail-afternoon-tea-for-two-revolution-bar
A TEA STORY………..Tea is often thought of as being a quintessentially British drink, and we have been drinking it for over 350 years. But in fact, the history of tea goes much further back, to China, where, according to legend, in 2737 BC, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water, when some leaves from the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea. Tea grew so popular that the Dutch, who, by the turn of the 17th century had established a trading post on the island of Java. Tea soon became a fashionable drink among the Dutch, and from there spread to other countries in continental western Europe, but because of its high price it remained a drink for the wealthy.
Britain, a little suspicious of continental trends, had yet to become the nation of tea drinkers that it is today. Since 1600, the British East India Company had a monopoly on importing goods from outside Europe, and it is likely that sailors on these ships brought tea home as gifts.
The real deal between tea and Great Britain was sealed with a marriage: when Catherine of Braganza and Charles II’s wedding, proved to be a turning point in the history of tea in Britain. She was a Portuguese princess, and a tea addict, and it was her love of the drink that established tea as a fashionable beverage first at court, and then among the wealthy classes.
Surviving high taxation, smuggling and adulteration, British passion for tea survived and thrived to this day, thanks to both historical events, political adjustments and the invention of the teabag: invented in America in the early twentieth century, but sales only really took off in Britain in the 1970s survived even after the dismantling of the Empire. With recent scientific research indicating that tea drinking may have direct health benefits, it is assured that for centuries to come there will be a place at the centre of British life for a nice cup of tea. To win answer this question: According to legend where was the first cup of tea drank? A: China B: America. Send you correct answer via email to editor @ alt – Africa (dot) com. Winners will be notified by email. Deadline for answers 2pm 10th August 2018.
