Residents have a tea-riffic time at Woking care home

At Bernard Sunley, the Woking-based residential, nursing and dementia care home run by charity Friends of the Elderly, which is celebrating its 120th Anniversary this year, the residents have had a ‘tea-riffic’ time celebrating this year’s Afternoon Tea Week and answering some very important, age old, tea related questions.

“There's nothing quite as lovely as a traditional Afternoon Tea,”said Monika Ahmed, the Activities Coordinator at Bernard Sunley.“It’s a lovely custom that the residents thoroughly enjoy as it combines all their favourite things – delicious, tasty treats, a good cup of tea and the opportunity to have a good catch-up with each other.”

“The residents adore our regular afternoon teas, so to celebrate this year’s Afternoon Tea Week what else could we do than host an extra special afternoon tea for them all to enjoy?” added Andy Cumper, the care home’s Registered Manager. “To add to the fun of the event, Monika thought it would be a good idea to do an entertaining poll to find out, once and for all, their favourite brew, tea likes, dislikes and to answer some important questions such as do you dunk or not dunk and is it cream before jam on scones?”

Whilst enjoying a scrumptious spread, Monika asked the residents a series of afternoon tea-orientated questions. “I put together 14 ‘Tea-zing’ questions for the residents to answer and we had a lively voting session whilst indulging in a fantastic afternoon tea with all the traditional accompaniments,”added Monika. “The results were quite interesting, fun and some, quite hilarious.”

The Bernard Sunley residents voted English Breakfast Tea as their number one favourite with Earl Grey taking second place. Tea bags had a landslide win with 100% of residents preferring a T-bags over loose leaf tea, but controversially, 99% of residents prefer their tea in a mug to a China cup and saucer. “We had quite a debate over whether or not the tea should be poured into the cup before the milk, and whether dunking was appropriate,” continued Monika.

“In the end, the answer tothe all-important question of whether it should be milk or tea first into a cup – or mug – the residents were 50/50 so that question resulted in a draw. However, they all agreed that dunking was totally unacceptable.”

“We also had a great conversation about scones,”continued Andy. “The Devon vs. Cornwall ways were highly debated. In Devon, you put clotted cream on first and cover that up with jam, but in Cornwall the jam goes on first, then the cream. Again, the outcome was quite clear with 100% of residents voting for jam first, then cream –but it was a split decision of which flavour of jam was best. It was a tight-run race, with Strawberry taking poll position and Apricot and Blackcurrant drawing in second place. One resident went against the grain and voted for a savoury scone as she really likes Cheese Scones with butter, and not the sweeter option.”

“The residents never cease to amaze me, I’m always learning something new,”added Monika.“One resident told me that the idea for afternoon tea was invented by Anna Maria, the 7th Duchess of Bedford. At that time, it was customary for people to have only two main meals a day – breakfast and dinner – so to combat the ‘sinking feeling’ she used to get at the later part of the afternoon, the Duchess indulged in a pot of tea and a light snack, which is how it all started.

“Another resident told the group that in keeping with the late Queen Elizabeth II’s preferred choice, scones served at the Buckingham Palace garden parties are always served jam first as well.”

“The residents had a wonderful afternoon tea and a great time talking ‘Afternoon Tea Shop’. There were quite a few jokes as well. One that did make everyone laugh was ‘Did you hear about the disappearing breakfast? One minute it was there, the next it was Scone’,” continued Monika.

“However, one thing all the residents agreed on was that a delicious afternoon tea is enjoyable any month of the year and on any day, as long as it’s with friends, which is what they like to do all the time,” concluded Andy.