Let's do tea...

In the fragrant, preciously feng shui'd environs of the Sanderson's Courtyard Garden, a collection of society powers, designers and self-styled bright young things gather.

Writer/TV presenter Yasmin Mills, model Saffron Aldridge, actress/model Laura Bailey, accessories designer Samantha Heskia, designer duo of the moment Nargess Gharani and Vanja Strok, and Antonia Thorp, the beauty business guru behind Urban Bliss, are ranged around the pristine white linen of a strategically appointed terrace table. They're here to talk business and swap gossip, network for their assorted benevolent causes, eat slivers of sandwiches and minuscule cakes and - most significantly - drink tea.

The fashionable tea party is having a renaissance. Following years languishing in an anti-hip no-man's-land, Darjeeling and genteel chat around multi-tiered silver cake stands have replaced drunkenness and debauchery in Chinawhite as a key aspirational lifestyle statement. Consider the evidence. Earlier this spring, Meg Mathews, legendary party animal, celebrated her 36th birthday by taking tea at Blakes Hotel in South Kensington. Sadie Frost, Sara Cox and Kate Moss joined her for refined chatter. Weeks earlier, Moss had publicly endorsed the scene with a live web chat on behalf of the British Tea Council, and a cameo at a promotional tea- drinking event. Donna Air, meantime, has cashed in her Met Bar membership and non-stop-party-person status for something far more civilised. 'It's Damian [Aspinall] and me in front of the fire with tea and scones,' she said recently, of her new and improved leisure activities.

Give or take Nargess and Vanja, who insist they don't normally do this kind of thing, Yasmin and her girlfriends are regulars on the tea-party scene. 'I'd always choose this over a lunch,' says Yasmin. 'If you find somewhere yummy and delicious to meet - particularly now it's almost summer - tea's so much more practical and fun than lunch. Plus you can get away with slipping out of the office early and sneaking off home afterwards.'

These girls offer, therefore, an insight into the etiquette and conventions governing the definitively chic tea party. Tea-party dress code, it would seem, is all about low-key glamour trimmed with urban edge. With a couple of exceptions, Yasmin's girlfriends are wearing jeans or cords (by Seven, Earl, Paul & Joe) and elaborate tops (by Burberry, Elspeth Gibson and, naturally, Gharani Strok). Laura Bailey, who has accessorised her diaphanous sundress with a pair of pink visor Chanel shades, thinks she looks like she's at the wrong party. 'I look like the person nobody invited, who's wandered into shot. It's like you lot should all be drinking tea, and I should be drinking a double vodka.' Yasmin is artfully solicitous. 'I love overdressing for things like this,' she says.

Sanderson has only recently launched TeaSpoon+, a menu aimed at the Power Tea Set, the high-flying business clientele who have recently taken to wheeling and dealing over Lapsang Souchong and iced fancies.

'Tea is certainly enjoying a resurgence at the moment,' says restaurant PR Elizabeth Crompton Batt. 'Both Spoon+ and Tuscan Steak at St Martins Lane have created these menus in response to a massive increase in demand. I think people have realised it's a less formal way to discuss business. Personally, I like the ceremony and ritual of it - it's extremely civilised, but equally very flexible. It can easily transform into early-evening drinks.'

Chic tea-party fare, therefore, can embrace anything from finger sandwiches and elaborately constructed amuse-bouches to champagne cocktails. Tea purists, however, are particularly keen on Fortnum and Mason's super-luxe White Tea, which is widely touted as the extravagance of the moment. Saffron Aldridge, however, insists on PG Tips with a slice of lemon. 'I recently discovered it on a BA flight. You see, I do not understand milk in tea.'

According to the Yasmin Mills-approved model, sanctioned chic tea-party conversation embraces three topics: children and pregnancies, charitable concerns, and A-list celebrity gossip (which must have been witnessed or eavesdropped first-hand by the gossiper).

Nargess Gharani, for example, is keen that everyone should know that she's pregnant, rather than fat ('All your life, you pull in your stomach,' she says, 'but when you're pregnant, you just can't'), while Saffron and Antonia are holding forth about the length of their children's school holidays. Yasmin is busily drumming up support for a forthcoming event in aid of the Sargent Cancer Care for Children Trust. Laura Bailey is assuring anyone who will listen that her friends' children will take some great pictures for Saffron's charity photographic exhibition. The assembled company nods earnestly. Clearly, to make your fashionable tea party go with a swing, you should contrive a charitable pretext for it.

After a gentle hour and a half, three pots of tea and several Sanderson speciality Mandrage Choix ham fingerbread sandwiches, Yasmin and her girlfriends exchange yoga instructor details and promises to do it again soon, and drift off to collect their children and co-ordinate their evenings. Chic tea-party culture dictates that, unlike all other social engagements, parties should never overrun and end up tailing off messily in the early hours of the next morning. The Power Tea Set are not in the habit of getting accidentally drunk and crawling home hours later than anticipated, with ripped hosiery and mascara- streaked cheeks, sweating tequila.

How the Power Tea Party scene develops from here remains to be seen. All evidence suggests that, for the time being at least, it's still in the ascendancy. Clearly, Yasmin and her girls are not about to give up on it, and Anne-Marie Houston, food and beverage manager at Brown's Hotel, reveals that they've been so overwhelmed by a new tea clientele, they've been forced to extend tea-serving hours until 6pm. But then, tea does after all correspond beautifully with these post-Priory, detoxed, clean and serene times. There's something very 2002, very Blair, very Nigella about the Power Tea Party's low-key sensibilities and benevolent leanings. Now would be a good time to consult with Claridge's tea sommelier on blends, warm up your pot and perfect your brewing skills. One lump or two?

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