thick tea

thick tea (plural thick teas)

1. (chiefly British, dated) High tea or an informal late afternoon or early evening meal, more substantial than afternoon tea.
   • 1864, George Augustus Sala, Edmund Hodgson Yates, Temple Bar - Volume 12, page 220:

     Her appearance, her dress, her manners; what they were pleased to term her "stand-offishness"; her shortcomings as a housekeeper; her ignorance in the matter of mending under-linen; her novel-reading and piano- playing — all these had been toothsome morsels, far more enjoyable than the heavy pies, the thick chops, and the sardines which figured in that horrible Mesopotamian meal known as a "thick tea;" and had been picked to the very bone.

   • 1868, Shirley Brooks, Sooner Or Later, page 344:

     He can read them in a pleasing manner, to his wife and his family, after a five o'clock thick tea, and the reviews will be enriched with the interesting and improving observation made during the perusals.

   • 1869, Wrecked in port, page 42:

     "It's unnatural in a gell like Marian Ashurst to think so much o' money and What it brings," would be a frequent remark at one of those private Helmingham institutions* known as "thick teas."

   • 1874, Reports on the Vienna Universal Exhibition of 1873:

     This was used both at meal-times and for a reading room, breakfasts with tea, dinners, whereat roast-beef and plum-pudding were frequent visitors, "thick teas," and suppers of beer and cheese, supplying the bodily, as a supply of English newspapers satisfied the mental appetites of the inmates.

   • 1886, Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did Next, page 130:

     The month's housekeeping wound up that night with a "thick tea" in honor of Lieutenant Worthington's arrival, which taxed all the resources of the little establishment. ... fresh eggs for an omelette, and chickens' breasts smothered in cream ...

   • 1890, Bazaar Exchange and Mart, and Journal of the Household:

     So many informal meals are required during the summer months, whether as light refreshments at tennis parties, or more substantial "thick teas” and “ early suppers,” that a constant change of sweet dishes is desirable.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see thick,‎ tea.
   • 1966, National Geographic - Volume 129, page 471:

     Americans prefer 'pointy,' light- flavored, high-grown teas from Dimbula or Nuwara Eliya; the English like 'thick' teas, with more body, from Uva," he explained.

   • 2003, Victoria Abbott Riccardi, Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto, →ISBN, page 190:

     While David made thick tea and then thin tea for his guests, we cleaned up, whispering and washing as quietly as possible to avoid being heard through the panel.

   • 2006, Colin Wilson, The murder casebook, →ISBN, page 83:

     I sat silent, eating bread-and-butter and drinking good hot thick tea from an even thicker teacup.

   • 2010, Kaeko Chiba, Japanese Women, Class and the Tea Ceremony, →ISBN:

     Both thick and thin tea is made from green powdered tea (matcha), the difference between them being in the amount of hot water used (gently stirred for thick tea, quickly whisked for thin tea).