Discovering out how the late Queen Elizabeth took her tea was more durable than one may assume.
That’s in keeping with Prue Leith, former star of The Nice British Bake Off, who shared on Instagram that discovering out how Her late Majesty preferred her tea was a bit difficult: “You’d assume it was a state secret!” Leith stated within the clip.
Leith defined that she was the caterer at a constructing Queen Elizabeth was opening years in the past, and “I needed to serve our late Queen a cup of tea,” she stated. Trying to present the Queen simply the kind of tea she most popular, she “rang up the palace” forward of the engagement.
“I assumed, if I understand how she likes the tea, I’ll be capable of produce a great one,” Leith stated. The issue? “The equerry wouldn’t inform” Leith her tea desire. The staffer did, nonetheless, specify that the Queen’s tea ought to be served “on a silver tea tray” with a tea pot with sizzling water and lemon slices.
On the occasion itself, Leith stated that, after greeting “an extended line of dignitaries,” Queen Elizabeth “should have been gasping for a cup of tea. She’d simply toured round this constructing for 2 hours.”
Then, lastly — the second Leith met the Queen. “Black or white, ma’am?” Leith requested. “Black, please,” the Queen responded. Leith then proceeded to place a lemon into the tea cup and, as she was pouring sizzling water, the Queen informed her, “No lemon, thanks.”
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“I had no second cup,” Leith continued, including that she “might hardly flick it onto the ground.” What to do? Leith thought shortly on her ft and put the lemon, soaked in tea by now, on her silver tray, inflicting a “nice brown stain” to unfold, she recalled.
Leith moved by means of the awkward second by topping the Queen’s cup off with some extra sizzling water. “I assumed that normally individuals who like black tea prefer it weak,” Leith stated. However — she goofed once more.
“After I had simply come to the brim of the teacup, she stated, ‘I prefer it robust,’ ” Leith remembered.
“She bought weak lemony tea when what she wished was robust black tea,” the restaurateur and cookbook writer stated. “I’ve felt dangerous ever since, however there it was.”
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Apparently, Queen Elizabeth didn’t maintain a grudge when it got here to Leith’s tea snafu. In 2021, Leith was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her companies to meals, broadcasting and charity.
Leith definitely wasn’t the primary particular person to flub in entrance of the Queen — and never even the primary well-known one. Helen Mirren beforehand informed PEOPLE that she was so starstruck when assembly the Queen and her husband Prince Philip that she didn’t know how one can tackle the late Duke of Edinburgh.
“I imply, is it sir? Is it Your Majesty? Is it Your Highness?” Mirren stated. “Is it impolite to ask him to go the milk? Or ought to I simply ask for a lackey?”
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After mulling it over, Mirren determined to only forego the milk. “I completed up not having any milk,” she stated. “I simply couldn’t kind it out.”
“It’s a lesson in embarrassment, however they had been pretty, they had been completely gracious,” added Mirren, who portrayed Queen Elizabeth onscreen in 2006’s The Queen.
