One of England's quaintest traditions, afternoon tea, has been revived by a new generation of Brits – in time for the Queen's birthday celebrations in June. Helped hugely by the ever-popular Great British Bake Off TV show, demand for a combination of English tea and cream cakes is back on the rise.
In the last year sales of typical afternoon tea related foods and kitchen items at Tesco have soared including:
- Tesco finest* cream cakes –4.5 million more sold
- The classic Battenberg cake – up 45 per cent
- Speciality teas like Earl Grey, Assam, Darjeeling – up nearly four per cent which is the equivalent of 250,000 packets
Now to meet the growing demand Tesco has recently launched a new range of innovative upmarket afternoon tea cakes, gateaux, tarts, meringues, sponges, roulades, brownies and cream slices. They include an Alfonso mango and passion fruit tart; finest heritage raspberry and almond tart; and Belgian chocolate and salted caramel tart.
A number of tea time favourites have been given a surprise twist such as the lemon tart which has been hand decorated with lemon cream, a white chocolate scroll and dusted with sherbet to heighten the zesty taste.
Tesco cake range buyer Rosie Bambaji said: “Afternoon tea is one of Britain's greatest culinary traditions. We know many of our customers have fallen in love with this special occasion once again so we wanted to help spruce up cake stands across the country with a new range of decadent cakes.
"The trend took off in hotels and restaurants thanks to the huge popularity of shows like The Great British Bake Off and afternoon tea has once again established itself as an occasion at home,with shoppers treating friends and family to delicious cakes at informal get togethers."