Learning resources at the Mackintosh Tearooms

Transcript

Hello! We are here at Mackintosh at the Willow with Oliver Braid, the Creative Learning Manager at Willow Tea Rooms Trust, that owns Mackintosh in the Willow, and we're going to be looking at afternoon tea - what it means, what it's about, its special history in Glasgow, and the contest we're going to be offering to students to design their own. 
So without further ado, we'll get started. Oliver! Hello! Welcome!

Thank you very much.

One of the things that people from anywhere outside the UK would think is "afternoon tea" is obviously a cup of tea you drink in the afternoon, but that's not really the case here, is it? There's so many other things British people mean by "tea".

Yeah. So since the Victorian period, since the mid-1800s, we've had something called the afternoon tea, and we've got an example of the afternoon tea here. It's served all across Britain, but here at the Willow Tea Rooms, we serve it every day. 
We've got a normal tea, which would just be like a cup of tea, and then we've got "afternoon tea", which normally will be tea served with maybe some savouries and some scones and some cakes.

And people in Scotland still also refer to their dinner in the evening as their "tea".

Yeah, and in England, where I'm from, as well we also say, "What are you having for your tea tonight?" And so in that context, "tea" means "dinner". That's the main meal, so it definitely doesn't just mean a cup of tea.

Great, thank you! So, we have here an example of a Mackintosh at the Willow afternoon tea for one, with lots of treats. Can you talk us through what we've got here?

Sure! At Mackintosh at the Willow, we change our afternoon teas quite a lot. We used to do a variety where we would present either a classic or a themed tea, or a seasonal tea. Today what we've got is a kind of classic afternoon tea, with some additional extras. Ok. 
Traditionally, the first layer is always savoury snacks and this comes from the original - again, the Victorian invention, where the Duchess of Bedford was credited with inventing the afternoon tea. She would order to her room a plate of bread and butter, a plate of cake and a cup of tea. So developing on that, we've got the savoury layer. 
Today we have sandwiches, and we have sausage rolls. But I've got the menu here as well so I'll just talk us through it. 
We've got the pastrami, pickle and English mustard on a pretzel bun. (Wow!) 
We've got the west coast of Scotland salmon, with a lemon and dill cream cheese. 
We've got smoked applewood and tomato chutney - so that's actually like a vegan inclusion. 
And then we've got the egg mayo and rocket, inside a little - or a petit - croissant. 
And then we've got these warm savouries as well in our afternoon tea. You actually get an extra plate, which is really special.
And on here, we have this classic Scottish haggis bonbon.
And then we have the traditional Scottish roll. So that's our savoury layer.And so I think normally people would eat that layer first.
And then we've got this mid layer, and it's quite interesting. 
We've got two different types of sweet things here,so I'm just going to move this jam, and you'll see that we've got a shortbread biscuit and we've got a scone.
We've got two scones. And the scones come with the jam and with the clotted cream. 
Original Victorian afternoon teas, when they developed, were served with biscuits.

Right.

And then, as the railway improved and as refrigeration improved, we were able to bring scones onto the afternoon tea menu, so this is more of an Edwardian addition, so early 1900s.
Scones with cream and scones with cream and jam had been served separately in the south of Britain in Devon and Cornwall, as what was known as a "cream tea".
And in late Victorian times lots of people, as you probably know, were going to the seaside.
Holidays became a big thing, and they were going to these southern parts of Britain and having scones served with jam and cream.
They bring that back, and then soon it becomes added onto the menu.
I'm sure probably most people watching know what jam is, they'll know what a biscuit is.
I'm assuming people will know what a scone is. It's like a slightly sweet but very dense bun, and we'll cut it open in a little bit so that people can see.
And then clotted cream ... this is why the improvement of refrigeration was important, because it's made particularly in Devon and Cornwall normally.
It's a very, very thick cream. Often it will come with a crust on the top of it, so it's almost nutty, and it's very, very thick.
And again we'll have a look at that and how to put that on.
Depending on whether you're from Devon or Cornwall, or whether you go, there is a debate about whether you put the cream on the scone first or whether you put the jam on first.

And then finally on the top here we've got a selection of luxury mini cakes. This is a staple for the afternoon tea, and again at Mackintosh at the Willow, we change our cakes quite regularly.
These ones today off the menu, we have got the lemon macaron with a raspberry and white chocolate ganache.

Beautiful! - just here, lovely colours.

Then we've got the salted caramel brownie entremet.
Then we've got the carrot cake which is topped with crystallized ginger and then we've got this lovely little caramel and banana tart just there.

Beautiful! So you've got a three-course meal all in one package, and it had better be a luxurious thing that you have occasionally because it's a lot of food!

Yeah, this is a lot of food. I suppose quite often it nowadays is more of a special treat.
We talked about the Duchess of Bedford. I think she went through a big stage of having it every day to cheer her up during this bleak afternoon time between meals.

Yeah, nowadays we find that people treat it much more as a sort of special occasion.

Beautiful, thank you! So, you said afternoon tea is one of the big things people buy here, but afternoon tea is just really a big thing in Glasgow at the moment generally. What do you think has made it so popular?

I think that people have had a hard couple of years, and they're looking for something that is a bit of a special treat, and people want to come out and relax again. 
And then also, I think, in general, we're aware that people now live their lives slightly based on what they can photograph and what they can put on social media, particularly Instagram. 
So we do get people who come in and maybe after their tea's served, they won't touch anything for a long time because they're actually photographing themselves with the tea.
So the presentation is really important both for us and for the people who are purchasing the product.
And I touched on earlier, I guess, we have this added attraction at Mackintosh at the Willow with our afternoon teas, in that they change on a rotation.
We've got this real classic example here. We used to do some very special themes. 
We've done a Wizard of Oz theme and Alice in Wonderland theme. So, again, really playing into the Instagram-able nature of that kind of food.
And these were particularly popular just after lockdown, when people were coming out. They were looking for something really exciting,and particularly something for the family, so just fun afternoon tea themes really bring that in. 
Our more traditional look or the classic afternoon tea, this is more popular with older people, and particularly older locals who remember going for an afternoon tea when they were young in Glasgow.
Some people who come here can still remember coming to these tea rooms to have a traditional afternoon tea, so it's like a walk down memory lane.
And then more recently we've been doing a combination of the themed tea and the classic, in the shape of a seasonal tea.
This is classic but with a theme rolled into it, and that also brings back repeat customers, particularly international audiences as well. 
Often when they come, they really want more of a classic feeling of an afternoon tea, yeah.

And with all these different types of teas you guys have tried out, are there any lessons you've learned- that would be useful for people designing their own afternoon tea?

I think we have found that the themed teas - so, I love them because they look really fun, the cakes are really special - but they actually aren't as popular as a classic or a seasonal, so I think going forward what we're looking at doing is more of a rotation between the classic and the seasonal and less of the fun theme. 
Although I would still be really open seeing if somebody wanted to design a really fun themed afternoon tea.
I think there's still a lot of space for imagination.
I think, in general, because there's so many courses and it's quite a visual sensory thing, I think for chefs and for people producing food, this is a dream situation, because you can experiment with the look and the palette across savoury and sweet option.

Lots of scope for creativity and tastiness, and for people to experiment!

Yeah, definitely.

Great! Thank you so much! So we've talked about how Kate Cranston developed this space in her businesses but here we are,mu ch later, and we've got Willow Tea Rooms Trust that you work for and Mackintosh at the Willow that we're sitting in.
Can you tell us about those organizations and what they do?

Sure. So, as you said rightly, this building first opened 120 years ago, in 1903. It was the last of Kate Cranston's tea rooms.
Then she actually sold it in 1919. It became a restaurant, and it became a department store.
In the mid-1980s, it was empty, and then taken over again by a jewellery business,which ran here until about 2013, and then the business closed completely.
So in 2014 a businesswoman from the city, Celia Sinclair, who was a Mackintosh fan, saw that this building was empty and she purchased the entire building to stop the original Mackintosh work from being distributed into private collections.
She saved this building for the city.
And then between 2014 and 2018, she worked with artists and designers and academics from the university to recreate the tea rooms to look identical to how they looked when it first opened in 1903.
Celia formed a trust - the Willow Tea Rooms Trust - and I work for the trust.
And part of the trust, or an arm of the trust, is a social enterprise based in the tea rooms, which is now called Mackintosh at the Willow.
And so we run the entire building as a tea rooms. 
There's also an education department, which is what I run.
There are hireable spaces, and we have a shop, and we have a visitor centre with a museum all about the history of Kate Cranston, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the history of tea in Glasgow. 
Yeah, and I think we can do about 200 covers at a time in the space, so really busy. And a lot of our biggest trade is people coming for the afternoon tea.

Lovely! So we just want to thank Oliver for sharing all this wonderful knowledge with us, and thank the kitchen for producing this amazing afternoon tea that we're going to test out, and the whole Mackintosh at the Willow and Willow Tea Rooms Trust for sharing this with us.

Sabrina, thanks for coming. Thanks for offering us the opportunity to show our afternoon tea, and I think there's a competition for students. Maybe you can introduce for us now.

Yes! So for students who would like to use the inspiration we hope you've just had. For cooking students or bakery students, we would love to get your take on what afternoon tea could be. As we've discussed, there's loads of scope for creativity. 
You would just need to provide the three different courses, give us your recipes and pictures. And for hospitality service students, you could design how you're going to present and deliver it. 
It could even be an event that you're designing it around.
And for tourism or marketing, even ambitious English students, you can produce a video of up to five minutes talking about afternoon tea to promote it to an international audience and we'll give you details separately of how to submit that.
And the successful winners will get a caddy of special tea and also feature on the Willow Tea Rooms Trust social media.

Thanks for that and good luck!