Start with weight, not just flavour

The most useful rule I can give you is this: match the weight of the tea to the weight of the bake. A delicate white tea poured alongside a dense wedge of Dundee cake will simply disappear, and a bracing, malty breakfast blend will bully a featherlight madeira into submission. Think of the two as voices in the same room — you want conversation, not a shouting match.

After that, look at flavour families. Smoky, malty, toasty notes sit happily with butter, cheese and dark sugar. Floral, grassy and citrus notes lift cream, fruit and almond. And astringency — that drying, grippy quality in the cup — is your friend with anything rich, because it cuts through fat the way a squeeze of lemon does.

A few practical constants before we begin. Use freshly drawn water and don't overboil it repeatedly, as the oxygen goes and the cup tastes flat. For black teas, water just off the boil, around 95–100°C. Oolongs generally want 85–90°C, greens 70–80°C, and whites somewhere in between. Give leaves room to move: a generous teaspoon per cup, or roughly 2–3g per 200ml, and a pot rather than a cramped infuser basket wherever you can.

Smoke and malt with savouries

This is where lapsang souchong earns its place at the table, and it's the pairing people are most sceptical about until they try it. The tarry, bonfire character of a good lapsang is superb with smoked salmon on brown bread, with a sharp Cheddar and chive scone, or with a warm sausage roll. The smoke meets the smoke, and the tannin scrubs the pastry fat away.

• Lapsang souchong — smoked salmon sandwiches, cheese scones, sausage rolls, smoked mackerel pâté on toast.
• Assam — a strong, malty cup with a splash of milk is the classic partner for a pork pie, mature Cheddar, or an egg and cress sandwich.
• Russian Caravan — its gentle smokiness and biscuity edge works beautifully with potted shrimp or a warm cheese straw.
• English breakfast blends — robust enough for a ploughman's plate, and forgiving if you like milk and a little sugar.

If you're building a proper afternoon tea at home, serve the savoury course first with one of these, then move to something lighter for the sweet things. It gives the whole affair a shape.

Bright black teas and plain cakes

Plain baking — a Victoria sponge, a madeira loaf, a shortbread finger, a simple butter cake — is where a lighter black tea shines. First-flush Darjeeling has that muscatel, almost grapey brightness and enough structure to stand up to vanilla and jam without overwhelming them. A Ceylon is another good choice: clean, brisk, with a citrus edge that flatters a lemon drizzle beautifully.

• First-flush Darjeeling — Victoria sponge, raspberry jam, plain scones with clotted cream. Drink it without milk.
• Ceylon — lemon drizzle, seed cake, shortbread. A drop of milk is fine here.
• Second-flush Darjeeling — a touch rounder and more autumnal; lovely with a plain fruit loaf or bara brith.
• Keemun — soft, slightly cocoa-ish and smoky; excellent with a buttered teacake.

Keep the brew on the shorter side, three to four minutes. A plain cake has nowhere to hide, and a stewed cup will taste harsh beside it.

Oolong and the art of restraint

If there's one tea that deserves more attention on British tea tables, it's oolong. A lightly oxidised, ball-rolled oolong — the sort that unfurls into whole leaves — has a creamy, buttery quality and a faint orchid fragrance that makes plain cakes taste more like themselves.

Try a lightly oxidised oolong with a warm plain scone, split and buttered before the jam goes anywhere near it. It's also excellent with a plain almond cake, a light sponge, or those little iced biscuits that are mostly sugar and crunch. Because the tea is gentle but persistent, it handles cream and butter far better than its delicacy suggests.

Don't drown it. Use water around 85–90°C, steep for two to three minutes, and then re-steep the same leaves — most oolongs give three or four good infusions, each slightly different from the last. That progression is half the pleasure.

Green, white and floral teas with fruit and cream

Green and white teas are the natural allies of fruit. Their grassy, sometimes hay-like or melon-sweet notes echo orchard flavours instead of fighting them, and their lightness keeps a cream-filled bake from feeling heavy.

• Sencha or a Chinese green — cucumber sandwiches, apple cake, gooseberry fool. Brew at 70–80°C for no more than two minutes.
• White peony — elderflower drizzle cake, pears poached in vanilla, a plain almond macaroon. Gentle, honeyed, endlessly forgiving.
• Jasmine green — lemon and elderflower bakes, madeleines, anything with a floral note of its own.
• Silver needle — the plainest of all; pair it with a really good plain biscuit and let it be the star.

Skip milk entirely here — it flattens the aromatics and leaves you wondering what the fuss was about.

Fragrant and spiced teas with richer bakes

When the cakes get darker and sweeter, you need a tea with a bit of perfume. Earl Grey and chocolate are one of the great marriages: the bergamot's citrus oil lifts the cocoa, and the black tea base keeps the whole thing from cloying. A chocolate brownie, a chocolate fudge cake, or even a dark chocolate digestive all benefit.

Masala chai — properly brewed with milk, ginger, cardamom and clove — is magnificent with gingerbread, parkin or a sticky ginger loaf. The spice doubles up and the milk rounds off the heat. For a lighter mood, a rose-scented or cardamom-scented black tea is lovely with a pistachio and rosewater cake or a batch of shortbread flecked with citrus zest.

One word of caution on sweetness. If you're already serving a very sweet bake, keep the tea unsweetened. Sugar in the cup plus sugar on the plate is the quickest way to make a good tea table feel like hard work.

Putting it together at home

If you're laying on afternoon tea for friends, three teas is usually enough: one robust, one bright and one delicate. Warm the pot, keep a spare jug of hot water so nobody's cup stews, and serve the tea in the order of the food — savoury first, then plain cakes, then the rich ones.

Finally, taste as you go. Pairings are a starting point, not a rule, and the best cup is the one you actually want to drink with the cake you've just pulled from the oven. Half the fun of home baking is discovering, on some rainy Tuesday, that your jam tart and that forgotten packet of oolong are quietly made for each other.