Cream tea

A cream tea is an afternoon tea consisting of tea, scones, clotted cream (or, less authentically, whipped cream), jam, and sometimes butter. Cream teas are sold in tea rooms throughout England, especially Devon and Cornwall, and in some other parts of the Commonwealth. The origin of the cream tea is disputed, although there is evidence to suggest that the tradition of eating bread with cream and jam existed at Tavistock Abbey in Devon in the 11th century. The Oxford English Dictionary reports the earliest use of "cream tea" in the sense of the afternoon tea, as opposed to a cup of tea with cream in it, is in the 1964 novel Picture of Millie by Philip Maitland Hubbard, "We just bathe and moon about and eat cream teas." However, the "Foods of England" website has discovered an earlier newspaper cutting, The Cornishman of Thursday, 3 September 1931 (p. 8), which uses the phrase in what appears to be its modern sense: "For an alleged Cornish cream tea consisting of three slices of bread and butter, a splashing of cream and jam and two anemic rolls, I was charged 1s. 6d."

Source: Wikipedia