Every time I’m in London, I do the tourist thing and have afternoon tea at a nice hotel or restaurant. I cannot help it, it’s an occasion designed to appeal to me – I love tea, I love small meals (I can eat uninterrupted 24/7, but not big quantities at a time), I love the historical aspect, I love the nice china, I love tiny jam jars… Resistance is futile.

I also like to have afternoon tea at home and offer it to friends. But it’s not always you feel like having the full clotted-cream-and-five-cakes extravaganza. It is time consuming and quite heavy, so I’ve been thinking about alternatives that would still have the main elements – tea, sandwiches, something sweet -, but be more realistic for everyday.

First of all, I’ve swapped the usual black tea for green: I would go with unflavoured Japanese green tea or possibly even macha. Then, I’ve used dark rye bread for sandwiches because it’s healthier and also because I’m Estonian and white bread is no real bread anyway. You could of course use any toppings you like, but I went with combinations that have lots of impact, but don’t require much fiddling: foie gras with pink champagne gelee, Saint Agur cheese with truffle honey and avocado with the dark Salish smoked salt.

For the sweet part, I guess good quality dark chocolate would be most in keeping with the healthier and more modern ethos, but as I don’t particularly enjoy plain dark chocolate, that seemed too joyless. So I’ve gone with these beautiful Sadaharu Aoki “make-up” pralines, flavoured with everything from yuzu to wasabi to caramel. They both look and taste wonderful.

I have also decided that there’s no reason why that kind of a meal should be reserved for afternoons and had all this for breakfast today. A day that starts like this cannot turn out bad, can it?