Afternoon tea is not an easy thing to find in Baltimore, a city more attuned to crab shacks, neighborhood bars, and pierogi shops than Earl Grey sanctuaries. But you can find the thoroughly English experience in places as diverse as a historic restaurant, a cozy tea room, and a cocktail-inspired hotel bar if you know where to look.

Baltimoreans might be accustomed to ordering a Natty Boh when work ends, but there’s much to be said for a strong brew and a scone with clotted cream and lemon curd.

Tea is everywhere in Britain, soaked into all levels of the culture. Strong black tea, leavened with milk, sometimes sugar, is far more than a drink there; it’s a rite, a comfort, a panacea. “Your husband leaves you, have a cup of tea. Your hamster dies, have a cup of tea,” says English-born Emma Canoles of Emma’s Tea Spot in Hamilton, who opened her shop to address the lack of a proper tea culture in this country.

Although there are restaurants, even in Baltimore, where you can get dressed up and be served tiered trays and flowered pots, there are also places like Emma’s, where you can just wander in for a brew.

“Given the economy, given how crazy people are right now, you need a place where you can feel included and not like you have to put on heels and spend a lot of money,” she says.

We’re not talking about high tea, the traditional English working-class supper, but the mid-afternoon iteration, usually not at high tables but in more comfortable settings.

This is the traditional tea service, with repeating teacups of seriously strong black tea, crusty scones, pots of jam, and all those tiny, triangular sandwiches, magically deprived of their crusts. Teapots wrapped in cloth or knitting. Mismatched china. Jam and butter and clotted cream in tiny pots.

This is the landscape of a tea service, and even if you don’t spend your spare time watching Downton Abbey reruns or BBC police procedurals, it is a thoroughly relaxing experience. This is especially true if you’re in need of a jolt of caffeine and sugar.

With that, here are five places in and around Baltimore to spend a well-wrought afternoon.

Emma’s Tea Spot

Hamilton

Opened in Hamilton in 2017 by British expat Emma Canoles and her American husband, Ben, a coppersmith, Emma’s outgrew its space earlier this year and reopened further down Harford Road. It’s now in a bigger spot, with an outdoor patio and a rear room with a cabinet outfitted like a British red phone booth.

Emma’s is a decidedly cozy place; there are shelves lined with china teapots and cups, canisters of loose-leaf tea, and jars of lemon curd and mustard. That homey feel extends to the service, which is less formal than most tea rooms.

“We purposely took away the table service so that people would move around the building and feel inspired to ask questions, rather than be served on, and be part of a community,” says Canoles.

You can order at the counter from a list of afternoon or high tea options (bottomless pots of tea, scones, little sandwiches, tiny desserts), or from a longer, more diverse menu that features soups, quiches, and iconic dishes like butties, sarnies, and toasties (all variations of a sandwich).

This low-key, communal approach can be perfect for those just wanting to pop in for a cheese and onion toastie and a pot of English Breakfast, but you can also opt for the so-called Special Tea, which involves a tablecloth and table service. And yes, she also offers two high tea services, which, like the Special Tea, come with the traditional tiered plates, if you feel like dressing up in your pearls and fascinator.

Emma’s is traditional, but it’s also wonderfully idiosyncratic, as Canoles has plans to start reading cards and tea leaves in her “apothecary” room.

“That type of divinity has always been part of my life,” says the Surrey native. “Back in the day, you know, it was a hot cauldron and kettle and a cat.”

In the beginning, Canoles did all the baking, but when that became too much work, she gave her recipes to Bluebird Bakery to bake for her. The teas come from Wisconsin’s Rishi Co., the coffee is our local Zeke’s, and you can pick up a jar of Coleman’s hot mustard, a kid’s ceramic tea set, or a bag of loose-leaf tea on your way out.

Emma’s homeyness extends to mismatched tea cups and saucers and the tea cosies knitted by neighborhood volunteers.

“People think it’s to keep the tea warm,” says Canoles, “but if you warm the pot, it’s really not for that. It’s so you don’t burn your hands when you pass it around.”

Unsurprisingly, Canoles’ tea apocrypha is extensive. The extended pinky finger, for example, is not a BBC cliche, but eminently practical in its origin.

“That was because the teacups would get so ornate that if you couldn’t put your fingers through it to stop it dropping onto your lap, you would have to throw out a counterbalance,” says Canoles, who once worked at a civil office in England where she actually pushed a tea trolley.

Magdalena

Mt. Vernon

Walk into Magdalena, the restaurant that’s part of The Ivy Hotel in Baltimore’s tony Mt. Vernon neighborhood, on an early Sunday afternoon, and you’ll be guided into their dining room for tea service.

Earl Grey in a wee pot. Vanilla scones. Cucumber sandwiches. A server comes by with a tea cart, bringing you a teapot, teacup, a small pitcher of milk, and an hourglass timer to assure correct brewing time (light, medium, strong), then a tiered plate with snacks arranged like museum pieces. There is jazz playing, sunlight streaming in through the windows. The teapot seems bottomless, which is how it should be.

Tea service has long been available for hotel guests, who are afforded this elaborate tea served every afternoon in the well-appointed Gilded Age lounge on the hotel’s second floor. Since Mother’s Day of last year, it’s also been available every Sunday for outside diners.

This is a swank version of afternoon tea, served courtesy of that cart in the fine-dining restaurant at the heart of the circa-1890s Mt. Vernon mansion. The pastry kitchen is helmed by dedicated pastry chef Emily Heleba, part of the eight-member kitchen staff who serve the 65-seat restaurant and hotel guests.

“We’ve always had tea upstairs for our hotel guests,” says Heleba, “but it was really important for us to allow people outside our hotel guests to experience it.”

As with Magdalena’s dinner menus, the tea service menu is highly seasonal, with items like the profiteroles changing according to the weather. There are rotating cakes and macarons, lemon bars, brownies, vanilla scones with house-made honey-butter and jam—because Heleba is, after all, a pastry chef.

“Obviously we have our dessert program and it’s fun to come up with stuff for that but I feel like afternoon tea is just a whole different sort of service,” she says.

And then, of course, there are the tea sandwiches, geometrical delights topped with smoked salmon, egg salad, pimento cheese, tomato, and cucumber. Teas are sourced from Equitea in Remington and Rare Tea Cellar in Chicago, and there’s a subsection of boozy options, like prosecco, Champagne, and mimosas.

“I feel like there’s a lot of conversation going on right now about like third space and how there’s a lack of third spaces,” says Heleba, in her immaculate chef’s jacket. “Having afternoon tea is a great option for that.”

Reynolds Tavern

Annapolis

Across the street from St. Anne’s church in downtown Annapolis, Reynold’s Tavern is the oldest tavern in Maryland—and one of the oldest in the country.

A Georgian brick building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it was opened in 1747 by William Reynolds, an Annapolis merchant and hatter.

Though the place has transitioned over the centuries, at times a bank, a boarding house, a library, and very nearly a gas station, it is now back to what it was meant to be: a tavern. While dinner is available, the two first-floor dining rooms during the day function largely as tea rooms, serving variations on a traditional tea service.

Very little has changed in those rooms, whose walls are lined with paintings, including one of George Washington over a fireplace, wooden shelves filled with china, and antiques, including an ancient hot water heater. The small tables are covered with cloths and enormous doilies. The cutlery comes alongside cloth napkins wrapped up like roses.

When your tiered tray arrives, it will be loaded with Bakewell tarts, macarons, and sandwiches: egg salad, cucumber, and the most popular of all, coronation chicken (the famous curried chicken salad created in 1953 for the coronation banquet of Queen Elizabeth II), all made in-house.

There are cream tea scones, with jam and clotted cream, and savory tarts. And because this is a full kitchen that also serves guests staying in one of three suites upstairs, you can order options such as a cheese tray, quiche, or Maryland crab soup. Coffee, wine, even bottles of Champagne are also available.(Especially if your afternoon tea should extend to an overnight upstairs.)

Pendry Baltimore 

Fells Point

Tea service at this luxury hotel on Broadway pier in Fells Point, is a  upscale event. It’s also not highly caffeinated but rather a boozy rendition, featuring a trio of cocktails made with tea but also accentuated with alcohol.

The teas used are high-end, from the local Wight Tea Co., and they’re mixed with things like sherry and grapefruit, Alpine herbal liquor and sage, or cappelletti aperitivo and honey.

They arrive in beautiful porcelain pots, poured by a tea sommelier into mismatched china cups and saucers sourced from Fells Point and Canton antique shops. They’re paired, in succession, with an elevated modernist wooden tray stacked with open-face sandwiches, scones and honey, and various desserts from the kitchen, all made in-house by the dedicated pastry chef and her team.

The atmosphere is more cocktail lounge than teahouse, as you’re in a darkened, firelit room with comfortable chairs. A saxophonist may be playing.

Outside, there’s a courtyard so large and plant-loaded that it resembles an arboretum—it also has, just in case you doubted the luxury aspirations of the place, a Moët & Chandon vending machin —and beyond that, an outdoor pool overlooking the Inner Harbor.

The décor is as impressive as the cocktails, with a full bar and whiskey art tracing to The Pendry Baltimore’s history with the original owners, Scott and Kevin Plank, and their Sagamore Distillery. There’s even an actual cannon installed under glass below the parquet floor.

In short, this is not your Surrey grandmother’s afternoon tea. The pastries are rotated seasonally, as are the cocktails that accompany them: recently, quail-egg tartines with scallion aioli; grilled halloumi with gooseberry chutney; spiced fig scones with rum butter; cookie butter profiteroles; and cranberry-hazelnut financiers.

The Tea Room  

Catonsville

Opened on busy Frederick Road in Catonsville in mid-September, The Tea Room serves a much more curated, intimate afternoon tea than anywhere else in the area. The experience lasts over an hour and a half, is by appointment only, and works more like Japanese omakase or a wine tasting event than the more traditional tea-tray and-sandwiches version.

It’s owned by Laura Hodges, the British-born interior designer who runs Laura Hodges Studio next door, and that expertise is evident as soon as you walk in the door. There are only three cafe tables, and thus a maximum capacity of six guests.

Hodges and her husband, Tim, are working with tea curator Adam Holland, who guides the lengthy service, a combination of individual pours of various teas, informal lectures, neighborly Q&As, pleasant conversation, and small bites with your own pot. It’s informative and extremely relaxing.

That’s the point, of course: to have a community experience without rush, screens, or phones, in the company of tea-minded friends and strangers.

The teas are from Baltimore’s Wight Tea Co. and the small bites are from La Cosette, a French patisserie in Locust Point run by a gifted Tunisian baker.

There’s a highly selective menu of teas—black, white, oolong, green, herbal, etc.—as well as a retail menu that includes hard-to find gems like Shenandoah, a smokey tea sourced in the U.S.; a pumpkin-coconut rooibos made with pepitas; and Jeju black matcha.

The teas will rotate seasonally, as will the menu, which recently included warm scones, a miniature cheese plate, a small lemon meringue tart, and almond cookies. There’s also a selection of jams, honey, crackers, tea gear, and little hourglass timers for your brew.

Along with the lovely items for sale, there are a few antique tea pots and paraphernalia, which lends a further air of history and tradition.

The shop has only recently opened, and there are other ideas in the works, like events, a wider menu, maybe even the possibility of coffee, as there’s a gorgeous espresso machine next to the counter, though at the moment it’s there exclusively for Tim. (Some habits are hard to break.)