How to Set a Tea Table for Six

Afternoon tea is one of the few meals where the table does most of the work. Get the pieces in the right places and the afternoon more or less runs itself. Here is how we lay a table for six.

What a full service includes

A tea service for six usually runs to twenty-one or twenty-four pieces: a teapot, six cups, six saucers, six side plates, a cream jug and a sugar bowl. More generous sets add a cake plate or a lidded biscuit dish. If you are buying a service rather than assembling one, count the pieces before you count the price — a fifteen-piece set and a twenty-four-piece set can look identical in a photograph.

Where each piece goes

The side plate sits directly in front of each guest. The cup and saucer go to the right of it, roughly at four o'clock, with the handle turned to the right so it can be lifted without a fumble. The teaspoon rests on the saucer behind the cup, never in it. The napkin goes on the side plate, or to the left if you are putting food out straight away.

The teapot belongs nearest whoever is pouring, with the cream jug and sugar bowl together beside it — a small tray under those two keeps drips off the linen and lets you pass them as a pair.

The three-tier stand, from the bottom up

Savouries on the bottom tier, scones in the middle, sweets on top. You work upwards, which is also why the stand is loaded that way: the plainest things first, the richest last. Do not stack the tiers so full that guests cannot lift anything off without an avalanche.

How much tea to make

Allow two to three cups per guest across the afternoon, which for six people means brewing at least twice. Use roughly one teaspoon of loose leaf per cup, plus one for the pot. Black tea wants water just off the boil and three to five minutes of steeping; green tea wants cooler water, around 80°C, and two to three minutes.

Warm the pot first — a splash of hot water, swirled and poured away. A cold pot pulls the temperature down the moment the water hits it, and under-extracted tea is the most common thing that goes wrong at an otherwise beautiful table.

Milk first, or tea first?

Milk went in first historically to protect thin porcelain from the shock of boiling water. Modern bone china takes boiling water without complaint, so pour the tea first: it is the only way to judge the strength as you go and adjust for each guest.

Three small things that make a table look considered

• Keep flowers low. Anything above eye level means your guests spend the afternoon talking around an arrangement.
• Warm the cups alongside the pot. Tea poured into a cold cup loses several degrees before anyone tastes it.
• Leave room. A crowded table reads as anxious. Six place settings on a table meant for eight always looks better than the reverse.

Building a service

If you are starting from nothing, a six-serving set gets you further than buying pieces individually, and it guarantees the pattern matches. Our tea table collection has complete bone china services, teapots on their own, and cup-and-saucer pairs for filling gaps in a set you already own. If you are buying for someone else, The Gift Edit is the same pieces, chosen for how well they give.

Questions about a particular service — how many it seats, whether it is dishwasher safe, what the cups hold — we are happy to measure and check before you order.