Everyone has their own special preferences when it comes to the perfect cup of tea, especially the Brits. But it turns out one celebrity found herself in quite the embarrassing predicament when serving a cuppa to Queen Elizabeth.
Prue Leith, who formerly starred on The Great British Bake Off, posted an Instagram Reel on Tuesday, Oct. 15 sharing the hilarious story behind her royal tea mixup.
“I had to serve our late Queen a cup of tea years ago,” Leith started out the tale, explaining, “I was the caterer at a building she was opening.” In an attempt to do her research, the TV personality said she “rang up the palace” ahead of the event.
“I thought if I know how she likes the tea, I’ll be able to produce a good one,” Leith said. Very sensible, right? The only issue was “the equerry would not tell” her how Queen Elizabeth took her tea.
“You’d think it was a state secret!” Leith exclaimed in the Reel.
What the royal staffer did tell her was that The Queen’s tea should be served “on a silver tea tray” containing a tea pot with hot water and lemon slices (the latter detail will become important later in the story). The equerry advised Leith to ask Queen Elizabeth herself how she’d like her tea during the event.
The Bake Off star continued that “there was a long line of dignitaries” and she stood at the end with the tea tray, noting Queen Elizabeth “must have been gasping for a cup of tea. She’d just toured around this building for two hours.”
After asking the monarch “black or white, ma’am?” Queen Elizabeth replied, “black, please.” Leith plopped a lemon slice into the tea cup and as she was pouring hot water, The Queen said, “no lemon, thanks.”
The Reel then cut to a video of a Corgi giving some serious side-eye. But sadly, the awkwardness didn’t stop there.
“I had no second cup,” Leith shared, continuing that she “could hardly flick it onto the floor.” With no other option, the reality star said she put the tea-soaked lemon slice down on her silver tray, causing a “great big brown stain” to spread across its cloth.
Apparently Queen Elizabeth preferred strong black tea.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
She kept calm and carried on, topping the cup of tea off with some more hot water. “I thought that usually people who like black tea like it weak,” the restaurateur explained. However, she was wrong again.
“When I had just come to the brim of the teacup, she said, ‘I like it strong,'” Leith said of The Queen. Oops.
“She got weak lemony tea when what she wanted was strong black tea,” the cookbook author said. “I’ve felt bad ever since, but there it was.”
Leith isn’t the first person to suffer tea-inflicted humiliation due to Queen Elizabeth. Helen Mirren recalled being invited for an intimate tea with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and several other guests when she was so starstruck that she didn’t know how to address the late Duke of Edinburgh, so she “finished up not having any milk” rather than call him the wrong title (via People).
“It’s a lesson in embarrassment, but they were lovely, they were utterly gracious,” she said.
Luckily, Queen Elizabeth couldn’t have been too bothered by the incident with Leith, either. The baking pro was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the Royal Family in 2021 for her services to food, broadcasting, and charity.
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