It’s all about cream teas. Some are good, some are indifferent, but they are all logged here.

I mostly eat my cream teas on day trips. I live in Letchworth Garden City, so lets be honest, I’m not all that likely to be eating many cream teas in Worcestershire for instance.

You may wonder what I look for in an ideal cream tea, well, shall I tell you?

Tea
Should be served in a teapot with a cup and saucer. A really good pot of tea will be loose leaf and come with a strainer, but that is a very rare thing and I don’t ask for miracles. The bigger the pot the better, I like to have several cups. Milk should be a jug of proper fresh milk. It’s depressing how many places fob you off with those little plastic cartons of long-life uht milk - or horror of horrors, ‘dairy free’. Ugh.

Scone
It’s always nice to have a choice of fruit or plain. In the absence of choice, I feel fruit should be the default scone - plain just looks lazy to me. Generally bigger is better, but sometimes the size can just get a bit silly, so I reserve the right to waver on this issue. A scone should generally have a pleasant moist texture - there’s nothing worse than a crunchy scone that falls to pieces when you try and spread your topping. Of course, home-made is best.

Cream or Butter?
Well, there’s the question. I’m not a cream queen, I really rather enjoy a scone with just butter and jam, but I do like to feel I’ve had the choice. However, I would always favour a decent quality butter and jam combination over a petty tokenistic tiny plastic pot of cream - if you can’t afford to offer a decent amount of cream, don’t bother.

Then of course there’s the issue of whipped or clotted. Frankly I’m not fussy, both are nice.

Jam
Now, if I am flexible on the cream/butter issue, I am rigid on the jam. In my opinion the only jam for a scone is strawberry - however I know many people who swear by raspberry, so I am going to allow that little bit of flex. But, let us be clear on this, the jam should always be red. Apricot, blackcurrant or (the very thought!) lemon curd have no place anywhere near a scone.

Jam should be of a good quality, ideally home-made. A good quality of jam usually features visible fruit and a reasonably firm texture. Pale, gelatinous, insipid jams do not please me.