In the British middle-class where Virginia Woolf grew up, the day was structured around four codified meals. Breakfast, hearty and hot, opened the morning (eggs, smoked fish, toast, marmalade). Luncheon, lighter, came at noon. Afternoon tea, at five o'clock, was as much a social ritual as a meal: tea, cake, scones, and conversation — it was the heart of Bloomsbury sociability. Dinner, in the evening, was the most formal meal, sometimes enhanced by a refined 'continental' dish when entertaining. Each hour had its register, its utensils, and its proprieties.

Two signatures respond to each other: strong-brewed black tea, the backbone of English sociability and Woolf's domestic obsession, and caraway (meadow cumin seeds) which perfumes seed cake, the most typically Victorian cake on family tables. The British culture of the era is recognized by this tannic bitterness of tea and this small aniseed grain of the accompaniment cake.