English Meal-Times and Meals

3.8

In England people usually have four meals a day: breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. They have breakfast in the morning, lunch at one o’clock, tea or coffee at five o’clock and dinner at seven or eight o’clock in the evening.

These are the meal-times in large towns. In small towns, where people live near their working places, they have early dinner which usually is at one o’clock. Then, of course, they have supper in the evening when they come home. At five o’clock in the afternoon they take a cup of tea, usually with bread and butter, the so-called “five o’clock tea”.