Time for Tea...Gladstone's Library

Hello there,

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends....today I would like to share with you a rather special afternoon tea adventure that I enjoyed recently with Alex.

Alex's sister Louisa works at Gladstone's Library in Hawarden, North Wales and she invited us to attend a rather tea-riffic "Museum at Night" event, which was held at the library and celebrated Alice in Wonderland.

An afternoon tea adventure at Gladstone's Library

Gladstone's Library is a residential library which pays tribute to William Gladstone. It was founded by Gladstone himself and, following his death in 1898 became the national memorial to his life and work. It is a beautiful Grade 1 listed building and we were really privileged to be able to enjoy afternoon tea in one of the reading rooms.

Gladstone's Library

The room was full of vintage china and scrummy treats for everyone to enjoy....as you can imagine there were plenty of teapots to keep us in tea...

Lots of teapots! 

As this afternoon tea event was part of "Museums at Night" ,that have been taking place between 13th-16th May, this afternoon tea adventure was enjoyed at night time. 

Once everyone had arrived, we took our seats and the tea stands were served....

Afternoon tea
Gladstone's Library

The library also has it's own bistro called Food for Thought, which serves lunch to non-residents every day, and everything we enjoyed at this event was made on site by Chef Alan. 

We began with the freshly made cucumber sandwiches on the bottom tier....

Afternoon tea sandwiches - Gladstone's Library

There was just one variety of sandwich on offer, but the bread was soft and the sandwiches very fresh (not at all soggy). The sandwiches were buttered and filled with thinly sliced cucumber. There wasn't a crust in sight and the fingers were a good size - not too big and not too small. 

A very tasty start to our afternoon tea adventure!

Next we moved onto the freshly made scones....

Afternoon tea scones - Gladstone's Library

These were served with whipped cream and strawberry jam. They came pre-sliced, which was a bit unusual, but to be honest they were so fresh this made no difference. 

The scones were a good size and texture - very enjoyable!

Scones dressed the
Tea With Me and Friends way!

At the top of the cake stand were the most amazing biscuits...something quite unusual on a traditional afternoon tea menu, but they made a very enjoyable addition....

Afternoon tea biscuits - Gladstone's Library

They were big, chewy and had large chocolate chips in them .....I don't I need to say anything else about them....they were scrummy!

As well as the food on the stands there were also various large cakes dotted around the room which we could help ourselves to. I didn't manage to take any photos of the whole cakes (I was a little distracted by the rest of the scrummy food) but I did remember to take a snap of the slice I enjoyed....

Afternoon tea cake
Gladstone's Library

Now, this cake reminded me of one of my favourite Mr Kipling cakes when I was younger....the "Manor House Cake" (yes I was a weird child)...only it was much better! 

It was a scrummy golden sponge, filled with raisins and walnuts. It was everything a cake should be!

All in all this was a wonderful afternoon tea, the food was good quality and very fresh. Particular attention had also been paid to the smaller details, including the theme, which all added to the experience. I know everyone at the library worked really hard to put this event on and their efforts didn't go unnoticed.

Alice in Wonderland inspired
afternoon tea - Gladstone's Library

Once we had enjoyed our tea, the lights were dimmed and we enjoyed a series of readings from Alice in Wonderland. Each reading was unique and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole evening.

Gladstone's Library

Now, this was a special event - part of the event calendar at Gladstone's Library, but no fear as you can enjoy afternoon tea at the library Monday - Friday between 3pm-4pm. Afternoon tea costs £7.95 per person and includes a cup of tea or coffee, sandwiches with a choice of fillings, a fruit scone with cream and jam and a piece of sponge cake. Booking is essential, please visit the Gladstone's Library website for more information.

We were really privileged to enjoy afternoon tea in this beautiful building, I'd like to thank Louisa for telling us about this experience. 

So, over to you - have you enjoyed an afternoon tea adventure in an unusual location? We'd love to hear all about it, drop us a line!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Tried and Tested....Whittard English Rose Tea

Hello there,

Welcome back to another tried and tested tea article from Tea With Me and Friends.

Recently I received a wonderful box full of tea goodies from Whittard and Joanne at Halpern. I have to say that I was rather excited as I rummaged through the box that arrived with me and I look forward to sharing with you the various teas that I have enjoyed as a result.

I will start with the English Rose Tea that I was sent, complete with a cute little infuser. This is part of the Alice in Wonderland themed range on offer at Whittard, and I was rather pleased to also find this charming fine bone china mug to drink my tea from....

English Rose Tea
 from Whittard

The mug has a lovely key handle, which I thought was a brilliant quirky touch. Although Joe found it a little too delicate to use ("I'll snap that" were his exact words), I am pleased to report that anyone with normal sized hands will find the handle a good size and easy to use. The design is very elegant and would make any Alice in Wonderland fan happy!

The tea itself is a blended black tea with flavouring, which is best enjoyed without milk. The black tea leaves are enhanced with rose petals to produce a rather fruity blend, which I found really pleasant. 

The leaves are very dark in colour as expected, punctuated with the colourful rose petals. I'd recommend about a teaspoon of them per cup, infused in freshly boiled water.

I really liked the handy infuser, which was easy to use and allowed for simple brewing once my water had boiled.

If you look closely you might see me in the reflection!

Once brewed the tea has a beautiful amber colour and wonderful aroma. 

If I'm honest - I'm not normally a rose tea fan, as I often find them very artificial and far too floral to enjoy. However, the rose in this brew was quite subtle and gave a sweet, almost fruity taste to the tea which I enjoyed.

English Rose Tea
from Whittard

I found this to be a very mellow tea, that I enjoyed at different times of the day - but it was particularly refreshing in the afternoon with a slice of cake! 

In fact I enjoyed this tea so much that when I worked away from home this week (three nights away) I took my loose leaf tea, infuser and mug with me! Now, I think this might make me a bit of a tea snob....but I really enjoyed having a decent cup of tea at the end of the work day!

Tea on the road....
I took my home comforts with me!

The tea and infuser come together as a lovely gift set and costs £14 and the mug costs £15. To find out more about these items and more of the Alice in Wonderland range (there is lots more to see!) visit the Whittard website.

I'd like to thank Whittard and Halpern for sending me these items to try. Please note that although I have been asked to review these products by the companies, all opinions expressed are my own and I have not been influenced.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for Tea....a trip down memory lane

Hello there,

All this talk about themed afternoon teas on the Tea With Me and Friends blog has made me think about the afternoon tea that we took our mum to on Mothering Sunday this year. As some of you will know, our obsession with afternoon tea all began with us taking Mum to The Savoy for afternoon tea on Mothers Day several years ago. This tradition has continued and we have taken mum to lots of different hotels for this annual treat - usually they are all very traditional.

This year however we decided to take mum to a slightly different afternoon tea....we took her to the Mad Hatters afternoon tea at The Sanderson in London. Now you may have already seen photos of this afternoon tea, it is a very popular tea to indulge in and photograph...if you have seen any photos you'll know its not exactly traditional.....


Mad Hatter Afternoon Tea - photo from the Sanderson website

The Mad Hatter afternoon tea is beautifully presented, it's very colourful and creative. We enjoyed the way the menu and sugar cubes were presented on the table, in fact the whole tea was styled rather well.

One lump or two?

The various fruity teas on offer to accompany our Alice in Wonderland themed afternoon tea were presented to us in small glass bottles - allowing us to see and smell the tea before picking our favourites to sample. Again, this was a nice touch - although as mum discovered those little bottles are very easy to knock over!

 

A novel way to present tea leaves!

The Sanderson website says that this tea will evolve and the flavours will change seasonally, and so please remember this is a trip down memory lane....this is what we enjoyed in March 2013.

 

Once we'd make our tea selections we started on the savoury plate...which on first sight was as far from traditional finger sandwiches as you could get!

Afternoon tea savoury selection

 The fillings however were fairly traditional with smoked salmon, cucumber and egg mayonnaise all featuring. The main difference was the fact that the sandwiches were rolled and they had different breads including a dark rye and a spinach bread. We also had a mini quiche of the day, which in our case was mushroom.

 

If I am honest I didn't really like the rolled sandwiches, they look interesting - but they were rather large and the texture was quite squidgy (never a good thing when it comes to sandwiches!).

 

We then moved onto the scones, as well as traditional sweet scones there were also savoury scones which were served with garlic and herb butter. The herb butter was very off putting however, and left a very distinctive flavour in your mouth - not the best mid-tea experience.

 

Finally we made it to the weird and wonderful selection of sweet treats...and there was plenty of choice....

The top tier of the afternoon tea stand - toadstool anyone?

 On the top tier we had carrot meringues served on a bed of pea shoots, along with some homemade strawberry and cream marshmallows (in the shape of toadstools).

A riot of colour - the Mad Hatter afternoon tea sweet treats!

We also had "tick tock" cakes, which were Victoria sponge cakes in disguise, green tea and white chocolate mousse served in a chocolate cup and melting mango cheesecake.

 

There were an awful lot of different flavours and textures going on during this afternoon tea....and it makes me think that maybe it is a little too creative. The traditional Victoria sponge cake wasn't the best that I've sampled and I think this might have been a case of style over substance....but this is just my humble opinion. Saying that I did enjoy the melting mango cheesecake, which was wrapped in patterned white chocolate and the homemade marshmallow was very good.

At this point we still had two more treats ahead of us....as Lorna is demonstrating below we each had a "Drink Me" potion to enjoy......

Plus there is the "Jelly Wonderland" to be explored...this is a cake stand full of fruit jellies that you can help yourself too.

The Mad Hatter afternoon tea is served daily between 12:30pm - 5:30pm and will cost you £38 each for a standard tea or £48 each for a champagne afternoon tea - making this afternoon tea a bit of a treat.

We all thought that this tea and the style of the experience was quite impressive, but unfortunately some of the items left us a bit cold. We also didn't have the best service on the day we visited, but I don't want to dwell on that too much. If you are looking for a completely different afternoon tea experience, then this will probably satisfy - you definitely will not find these sweet treats anywhere else!

Have you tried this afternoon tea? What did you think? Leave us a comment below...we'd love to hear your thoughts too.

Have you voted in our poll yet - we want to know what you think about themed afternoon teas...do you love them or are they not your cup of tea? Vote now before the poll closes!

Thanks for popping by today,
Rachel & Lorna