When my friend Samantha Strauss said she was planning to start holding a series of Sunday salons at her Chelsea home, I assumed this was a code for afternoon booze-ups. I couldn’t have been more wrong. What Sam was suggesting was a refined Viennese tea party lasting strictly from 3.30pm to 5.30pm.

It seems that civilised afternoon teas are no longer for the old-fashioned. Habitat is selling a £45 cake-stand. Cute faux-antique tea sets are appearing at Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges.

There are obvious advantages to giving sublime teas. You can flex your hostess muscles without exhausting them. Rather than putting on a dinner party and thus being expected to amuse your guests for up to eight hours (not counting unplanned sleepovers), you can more easily cram quality into a two-hour tea. If you want sought-after guests, you’ll have more chance of claiming their time between 3pm and 5pm than all night. And nobody will be too drunk to leave.

First, choose the theme. Sam went with Viennese for her inaugural tea, but the next one will be Ottoman, with baklava, mint tea, honey and rosewater cakes, pistachio cookies and orange cardamon sponge. Imperial Russian (berries, herb cakes, cream), Scandinavian (gingerbread and mulled wine), and Scottish (toffee, oatcakes, whisky, shortbread) are waiting in the wings.

It is then necessary to assemble a guest list and issue invitations — Sam’s were pistachio green with embossed pink lettering. Depending on the size of your drawing room, six or seven guests are about right — preferably an even mix of the sexes.

Don’t invite anyone too shy, as tea is an everyone sitting around facing each other affair and you can’t risk an awkwardly silent cake-gobbler. It is better to invite rambunctious types as they will not be over-awed by the hushed splendour of a perfect tea.

Now get hold of the right serving tools: matching teapots, coffee and milk jugs, cups and saucers, cake plates, a cake tray, little forks and dessert wine glasses.

With theme, guest list and accoutrements in place, it is only a matter of producing the edibles. Here, there is no room for skimping. Viennese tea, in particular, demands much. To sip, we had orange pekoe tea and Imperial Blend coffee. On the tiers of the antique porcelain Sèvres cake tray were mini-Battenburgs (M&S will do nicely here), Sacher-torte (ludicrously rich chocolate cake with apricot jam); spiced fruit cake; linzeraugen (large, round buttery biscuits with jam in the middle) and kipfern (hazlenut moons).

The challenge is to remain dainty and chatty when confronted with such a volume of impeccable sweets. Nevertheless, guests are inclined to make the effort, as restraint is as important a decoration in salon teas as the cakes themselves.

Cakes daintily scoffed, we were then offered apricot schnapps and Hungarian Tokay. With these drinks came trays of home-made raspberry-chocolate truffles and fruit-shaped marzipan, followed by overflowing bowls of Mozartkugel. But before we could get through enough schnapps to become coarse and unruly, 5.30 struck and carriages arrived.

If hosting a tea sounds too frightening, you could always take afternoon tea in style. Top places in London include The Ritz (020-7493 8181) and the Orangery at Kensington Palace (020-7376 0239, no reservations).

To find the best local places for a slap-up afternoon tea, consult Britain’s Best Afternoon Tea (AA, £9.99), a guide book produced by the Tea Council and the AA. If you’re planning a tea party and want to make sure your grasp of etiquette is perfect, Jane Pettigrew’s Afternoon Tea (Unichrome Guides, £9.99) reveals everything you need to know about the finer points of tea history, preparation, serving, drinking and equipment.

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