In the 1830s, when Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford, first came up with the concept of afternoon tea, she couldn’t have known that it would become such a revered British institution—she simply needed a way to assuage her appetite between lunch and the customarily late dinner hour. But now, more than seventy years later, afternoon tea is a firmly entrenched tradition, one that is especially enjoyable during the Christmas holidays at London’s renowned Fortnum & Mason department store.
