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Autumn Afternoon Tea Celebrating a Glorious Season

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Embrace the glorious fall season with an Autumn Afternoon Tea Party your guests will never forget. This season is a perfect time to treat yourself, friends, and family to a beautiful respite as the holiday season begins.

Pear Cake for An Autumn Afternoon Tea: Celebrating a Glorious Season

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Autumn and tea go hand in hand with gorgeous fall colors and the anticipation of a holiday season to come. It’s a time of gathering, of creating warm and memorable occasions that will be remembered throughout the chilly days ahead.

An Afternoon Autumn Tea: Celebrating a Glorious Season | 31Daily.com

Whether it’s a simple gathering around your table with tea and sweet treats, an afternoon tea with friends, or a heartier offering later in the day, the autumn season is a glorious time to celebrate friendships and delicious cups of fragrant warm tea.

To learn the differences between Afternoon Tea and High Tea, visit our British afternoon tea post.

Brown and White tea service with autumn tea treats.
Photo Credit: teatimemagazine.com

Hosting an Autumn Tea.

Let’s get inspired by these simple and easy yet beautiful ideas for hosting your own Autumn Tea.

1. Create An Autumn Afternoon Tea Menu

Floral Arrangement for an Afternoon Tea

From the first warming cup of tea to the last, your guests will be delighted as they gather around your tea table.

The autumn menu should reflect the season’s favorite flavors, with fall spices—like cinnamon, fragrant cloves, and crunchy peppercorns—or ingredients like pears, pumpkin, warming soups, and sweet treats like salted caramel.


2. Polish the Silver

Silver Teapot

Get a jumpstart on the season by polishing your silver and celebrating with an Autumn Tea Party. This set is a stunning sterling silver Gorham Strasbourg teapot.


3. Use Autumn Themed China

White Teapot with Orange Pumpkins

If you’re fortunate to have autumn china, serve with seasonal elements and bite-size sweets.

I’m always searching at Replacements.com to augment my favorite fall china patterns. Amazon also has some darling and beautiful fall-themed china patterns, too!


4. Serving Autumn Afternoon Tea Courses

Chloe Hemery, head pastry chef at London’s Milestone Hotel, has served tea to Queen Elizabeth. She says, “There’s the savoury course with tea sandwiches, the scones course served with clotted cream and jam, and, finally, the third course of sweet pastries.”

Afternoon tea generally consists of three courses, although some teas may serve more courses or fewer courses. To browse more tea recipes, see these posts:

Autumn Afternoon Tea Recipes

What will you serve at your fall tea? Here are some delicious fall tea recipes your guests will surely love, from scones to tea savories, finger foods, sweets, finger sandwiches, and more.

Autumn Afternoon Tea Recipes

When the colors change and the air cools, celebrate the season with an Autumn Afternoon Tea. Simple and memorable fall recipes for a tea you won't forget.


Afternoon Tea at 31Daily

Visit our Afternoon Tea link here for ideas and recipes for scones, savory courses, sweets, and more.

More Afternoon Tea posts you will enjoy!

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19 Comments

  1. Great recipes. Going to try a few this weekend at our quilters tea. Can’t get much better: quilts,goodies,friends and a beautiful fall day. Thank you Patti

  2. Hi Stephanie,

    Just wondering if you have the recipe for the turkey apple goat cheese tea sandwiches image #24 on this site. When I click on the link the recipe does not load. Any ideas on where to find this recipe?

    1. Hi Corrie– I am so disappointed. This is a great recipe and I had it printed and in my autumn tea file but for some reason, it’s gone missing. Thank you for letting me know. I can’t find the recipe online anywhere. This recipe is close but not exact. For the herbed goat cheese, I would plan on rolling the log of goat cheese in about 1/3 cup of chopped fresh herbs like dill, rosemary, or parsley. I will remove the link tomorrow so If you want to save the image for inspiration– If the recipe ever pops back up, I’ll add it back. They are really good!

      1. Stephanie,
        Thank you so very much for your quick reply. Sorry to bother you so much I have been on all your tea sites this week planning for my festive tea and so appreciate your responses. I have tried to search for this as well. I did take a screen shot of the sandwich for reference and have looked at the other link you sent. So much content on your tea sites, can’t make up my mind on what to actually make. Thank you again for your time and help. I am sure you will probably hear from me again. Have a super day.

        1. Anytime! I love hearing from you, and planning teas. I’d love to hear what you decide on. Happy planning!

  3. Hi Stephanie. I belong to an eight-member Tea Ladies group. We take turns hosting each month at our respective homes. I just hosted in June- my theme was “Cats in Teacups!” I host again in October- looking forward to trying some of the delicious sounding recipes you provided as I plan a fall menu. Our founding member (now in a different state) wrote about 18 plays/skits to be presented during each part of a tea. We have done several. I have the last one-“The Case of the Missing Quilt Caper.” So I will provide the ladies with the scripts! Decorations will be a combination of Fall and quilts! I’m the only quilter, but that doesn’t matter!

    1. Hi Phyllis! We are kindred spirits– tea and cozy mysteries! Your theme was darling and I’m sure all of your members loved it. I so wish we had a forum to upload photos of our teas as I would have loved to see yours. You’re fortunate to be able to close out your season with a fall tea. Thank you for sharing and for reading the autumn tea post. I hope you find some inspiring ideas– I’d love to hear how your fall tea turns out!

  4. This afternoon fall tea looks amazing! My sister, daughter and nieces do tea frequently and this looks better than most we have attended. I will make recipes from this post. Now I can’t wait till fall (my favorite season) to get here! Thank you !!

    1. Hi Barb! I absolutely love an autumn tea. I’m so glad you liked the post! Have fun with your tea! I’m already thinking about pumpkins too!

  5. This post will be a resource for years to come. However, the link for the “15 Minute Pumpkin Scone” recipe is actually a duplicate of the “Apple Cinnamon Scone” recipe above it. I’d really like the Pumpkin Scone recipe, so if you update that, please let me know. Thanks.

    1. Thank you so much, Karen! I hadn’t caught that — so appreciate you’re bringing it to my attention. Have updated the link!

  6. This post will be a resource for years to come! However, the link for the “15 Minute Pumpkin Scones” recipe is incorrect. It is actually a duplicate of the link for the “Apple Cinnamon Scone” recipe above it. Please let me know if you update to provide the correct link, as that pumpkin scone recipe is what I wanted most (although I am saving several others, too). Thank you.

  7. Now THIS is a blog post! My goodness, I don’t even know where to start. Beautiful pictures and delicious recipes. Lovely experience just reading this and I hope to actually make several of these recipes for a fall baby shower. Thank you!

    1. Thank you so much, Donna! It was such a pleasure to write! Have fun with your baby shower. Those are special times!

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