Valentines Day Afternoon Tea - Round Up 1

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends....are you feeling in the mood for love? Yes, it's that time of year again....time for hearts, red roses and Valentines themed afternoon teas!

With so many options available to treat your loved one to or even better to enjoy with your friends, we thought we'd share some of the Valentine themed afternoon teas being created in 2018!

The Langham have a rather beautiful looking afternoon tea available as a extra special treat on Valentine's day only....



The sweet treats on the menu include:
Where's Cupid? - Coffee and Orelys chocolate filled choux
Marry me- Pink almond praline tart
Love is all around- Hibiscus and red berry mousse
You melt me - Warm chocolate, vanilla ice cream to share
Say it with roses- Manjari mousse with passion fruit

If you fancy some bubbles with your afternoon tea adventure Scoff and Banter in London are running a special offer with the afternoon tea booking website afternoontea.co.uk which includes a complimentary bottle of Processco with their Valentines afternoon tea...



Pop by the website for more information.

Conrad London St James have introduced a special Valentine's themed pastry to their afternoon tea which is served in their lounge Emmeline...

The Rosewater & pomegranate dome is available between 10th - 14th February as an extra special Valentines treat!

Or maybe the Enchanted Rose Afternoon Tea at Kona at Taj 51 Buckingham Gate will melt your heart....



This rather pretty afternoon tea includes:

SWEET CRIMSON DELIGHT - Passion fruit meringue tart
VALENTINE BLUSH - Strawberry delice chocolate and hazelnut mille feuille
PINK PASSION - Pink Champagne jelly with minted foam
SCARLET DESIRE - Lavender macaroons
ROSE BLOSSOM - Red velvet pastry hearts

We hope you've enjoyed this first round up of romantic afternoon teas! Pop back soon when we'll have some more Valentine's themed inspiration for afternoon tea!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Afternoon Tea News - Valentines 2016 at Conrad St James

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - today we are taking a look at another Valentines afternoon tea on offer this February - this time we are taking a peek at Conrad St James.

Created by Head Pastry Chef Zoe Wager the London Love Story Afternoon Tea is a very pretty afternoon tea....

Valentines 2016 - Afternoon Tea - Conrad St James

As well as traditional finger sandwiches and scones there is a selection of beautiful sweet treats on offer to guests, which includes

White Chocolate & Champagne Truffles

Red Berry Shortcake

Dark Chocolate Velvet Cake

Rose Macaroon

Strawberry Panna Cotta Macerated Berries & Strawberry Foam

Sweet afternoon tea treats
Valentines Afternoon Tea - Conrad St James

There is lots of pink and hearts in this afternoon tea and we think it looks wonderfully romantic! This afternoon tea costs £55 per person with free flowing Rose Champagne or £39 per person without Champagne.

This afternoon tea is only available from the 12th - 14th February. For more information pop by the Conrad St James website. 

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for.....a little more Christmas?

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends. This week we've been scouring the Internet again looking for more amazing Christmas afternoon teas and this week we're sharing the Snow Queen afternoon tea from Conrad St James, London.

Just take a peek at this frosty afternoon tea....

This afternoon tea includes a selection of savouries:

London cured smoked salmon blini, caviar, lemon crème fraîche

Mini tartlet of cropwell bishop stilton & poached pear

Prawn cocktail, marie rose

Selection of fingers sandwiches

Followed by freshly baked scones served Served with Devonshire clotted cream,

homemade strawberry jam and winter berries curd (which sounds amazing!).

Finally guests can move onto the sweet plate which features:

Snowstorm - Coconut cream, mint macaroon, candy floss

The magic mirror -Salted butter shortbread, yogurt cheesecake, frosted blueberries

Snow Queen’s sceptre - Chocolate & pearl sponge, praline ganache, snowflake lace

Palace snowflakes - Blackcurrant & cardamom cake, crushed glittering meringue

 Blackberry kisses - Crème patisserie & blackberries

As usual Conrad St James offers either the afternoon tea served with tea from their tea menu or tea and.....unlimited bubbles for the hour and a half you are seated in the lounge for.

For more information about this frosty afternoon tea take a peek at the Conrad St James website. If you've tried this afternoon tea we'd love to hear what you thought about it - please get in touch!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea....Conrad St James

Hello there,

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends. Recently a group of four of us visited Conrad St James (previously the Intercontinental Westminster) to celebrate Alex's Birthday. We have always loved Pastry Chef Zoe's creations and were looking forward to sampling her latest.

This time we enjoyed another of her edible gardens which we first tried in the summer of last year....this time there was no greenhouse to delve into....but instead a stretch of grass and edible soil! This afternoon tea adventure is called the St. James's Glorious Garden....

St James's Glorious Garden afternoon tea
Conrad St James

Tea is still served in Emmeline's Lounge and we were pleased to see we still had musical accompaniment for our afternoon tea adventure...

The harpist was wonderful, playing a selection of traditional and modern music - something for everything.

But back to the more important thing....that wonderful tea...let's begin with the savoury selection....

Afternoon tea salad - Conrad St James

Afternoon tea savouries - Conrad St James

To begin we were served a light and summery salad, full of fresh ingredients. This was served alongside the more traditional finger sandwiches and mini brioche rolls. The fillings included coronation chicken, egg mayonnaise (in the roll), salmon and cucumber. They were all fresh, tasty and there was not a crust in sight. If I am honest I enjoyed the sandwiches more than the salad, but that is just personal preference.

Once we were finished with the savouries the warm scones and mini Chelsea buns were served....

We had one decent sized scone and one mini Chelsea bun eat. They were warm and were served with clotted cream, raspberry preserve and a tangy lemon curd....of course I had to try both....

Scones dressed the "tea with me and friends" way!

The scones were wonderful - perfect in texture and size. I loved the lemon curd too, which went well with the cream. I enjoyed the Chelsea bun, but I thought it might have been a little bit too small as it was a little dry.

After we had finished these the garden itself was served....let's take a closer look at the sweet treats....

Afternoon tea sweets - Conrad St James

The sweets included....

 Raspberry & orange macarons

Honey and earl grey chocolate bee cake pops

Carrot cake with candied carrot plant pot

 Lavender shortbread sandwich

 Mini rhubarb and spelt cake

There wasn't anything that I didn't like here....what a great selection of sweets! I particularly enjoyed the rhubarb cake and also these....

This was the Honey and earl grey chocolate bee cake pops complete with a cute little ladybird! The cakepop was lovely, full of flavour and not at all dry. I saved this to last and wasn't disappointed by my decision!

As it was a Birthday celebration the hotel also gave the Birthday girl a special treat....she was not impressed that I shared her age with the hotel....so I imagine I will not be very popular when she sees I've shared it with everyone else...but I couldn't not show you this....

Afternoon tea - Conrad St James

This treat was smooth, chocolately and sweet - a lovely treat!

We had the unlimited bubbles afternoon tea which meant that as well as unlimited tea we also had our champagne flutes filled for the 90 minutes we were there. Afternoon teas are available at £49 per person with free flowing G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge Champagne or £35 per person without champagne.

All in all it was lovely afternoon tea adventure and lovely to be back at the Conrad St James. Zoe continues to please and amaze with her sweet creations and this version did not disappoint! This tea is only available until the 12th July however, but fear not there are plenty more creations to try...

Emmeline's Lawn Club

July 11th – July 12th 2015

 

Summer in the City

July 13th – August 30th 2015

Autumn Bramble Afternoon Tea

August 31st – November 22nd 2015

I'd like to thank the Conrad St James for their hospitality. Please note that although we did receive two complimentary teas on this occasion this has not affected my taste buds and all opinions expressed here are our own.

For more information about the afternoon teas on offer at Conrad St James please visit their website.

If you try any of the other teas during the year we'd love to hear from you...I'm especially keen to hear about the bramble tea!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for a Little Christmas Cheer (part two).....

Hello there,

Welcome back to another Christmas themed afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends.

Last time we featured the fab Christmas themed afternoon tea created by pastry chef Ji Sun Shin at the Ampersand Hotel in London. If you loved those pastries you can read all about Ji Sun's creative process in our interview with her that took place earlier this year.

Today, we are featuring another highly creative pastry chef - this time Zoe Wager from the Conrad London St James (previously known as the Intercontinental Westminster). We also met Zoe earlier this year when she showed us her amazing seaside themed afternoon tea. So we were really keen to see what Zoe would create for Christmas......

Christmas afternoon tea - Conrad London St James

Among the selection of festive savouries on offer are a turkey ballotine, a venison bite in puff pastry and a creamy brussel sprout salad with goat’s cheese (I'm not sure I like the sound of that!). There are also a variety of finger sandwiches. The savouries are of course followed by warm scones and preserves.

Once you have polished off the savouries and scones, you are presented with the most beautiful winter scene....complete with edible snow!

Festive snowman meringue
Conrad London St James afternoon tea

How cute is that snowman? 

The sweets that you can enjoy at this afternoon tea are so magical, you might not want to eat them! Presented in a glass frame and with plenty of that edible snow you will find mini battenburg slices, snowflake macaroons, snowmen and Christmas trees!

Christmas Afternoon Tea - Conrad London St James

Celebrate Christmas at the Conrad London St. James with a festive afternoon tea and free flowing champagne for just £45.00 per person, without Champagne is £37.00 per person. 

This beautiful afternoon tea is already available and can be booked until 24th December. For more information please visit the Conrad London St James website.

If you have enjoyed this magical afternoon tea we would love to hear from you and see your photos! Please get in touch!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna