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Four years ago, during a very unusually long and hot British summer. Two friends and I were in Somerset, England attending a music festival. Having booked ourselves into a guest house a few miles from the festival site we were pleased to have somewhere safe and clean to retire to. Little did we know that our host was renowned for creating one of the most famous high tea experiences in the county, and we were about to be overcome by it's quality, freshness and charm. After the final afternoon of music had come to a close we fell, exhausted and worse-for-ware into the guesthouse at around 5pm, in need of comfort, relaxation and above all sustenance.

Mary, as our host was called, had obviously experienced such messy festival goers every year since the festival had began on her doorstep and would sooner have had us go to bed and leave her untroubled than invite us to have high tea with her and her much more refined guests. However, when another guest came down the wide staircase and asked, in her robust cockney accent "joining us for high tea girls", we gazed at one another wide eyed and with a city girls about to find coffee in the country look' nodded frantically and got ready to feel awake again, although, judging by the puzzled smiles of fake acknowledgement which crept across my companions faces I could see that they too had little idea of what "high" tea actually was. Inquisitively we followed our inviter and a less than pleased Mary into the conservatory.

Perching on soft, clean, bright floral print chairs soaking in the warm glow of an intense sun finally setting, we felt a relaxation which only that high tea hour (as I now know) can command. On re-entering the room from the kitchen Mary (followed by a young woman, presumably her granddaughter) presented two sturdy, deep mahogany trays, decorated in fine hand carved floral detail, and draped with soft lace dollies, carrying four identical pots of the richest, freshly brewed black tea I'd ever tasted. It's timing couldn't have been better, although our shorts, flip-flops, straw hats and summer vests could have been replaced by finer evening ware, like the other guests had been wise enough to sport. Still the atmosphere was perfect and critical to the high tea experience. After seeing and hearing my reaction to the quality of the tea, Mary began to warm to us a little and suggested, whilst giving me a little smile and presenting a pot of fresh coffee from the side lines, that "we must all move with the times

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