English as afternoon tea

English

Adjective

(as) English as afternoon tea

1. Synonym of English as apple pie (“quintessentially English”)
   • 1926, The Argosy, page 14:

     And for all that, he was as English as afternoon tea.

   • 2015 05, J. H. Wallder, Fragments of Tom, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 339:

     'Well for a start he's years older than mummy, nobody's ever seen anything he's supposed to have painted...and for someone who's as English as afternoon tea what's he doing with a name like Lorenzo?'

   • 2018 August 16, Brian Cummings, The Book of Common Prayer: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 100:

     If the Book of Common Prayer sounds as English as afternoon tea, like tea it conceals a more sinister economic and ethnographic history. Chapter 6 Modernity and the Book of Common Prayer Modernity 100.