Time for Tea....Meudon Hotel, Cornwall

Hello there,

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends, today we are joined by Ele Crossland, who shares my passion for afternoon tea and fab food in general. I recently saw a photo of Ele's on Twitter of some rather lovely looking scones and I asked her to share her recent scone adventures with us......

Picture the scene. A warm afternoon in early September. A sheltered valley overflowing with deep green, sub-tropical vegetation, a quiet, paved terrace, bathed in sunshine, and a generous tray of warmed scones, clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam. Is this the stuff of novels? No, it's what you can look forward to on a visit to the Meudon Hotel, Mawnan Smith, Cornwall.

Meudon Hotel - Cornwall

We stumbled upon this gem by accident. Having been let down by our first choice location for cream tea (they had run out of scones), we retraced our route along the coast road to this hotel, pulling into its driveway purely because it had a cream-painted Rodda's milk urn outside with the words 'cream tea' stencilled on.

The staff were so friendly and warm they actually chirped. Chirped! Blinking our way into the cool, shaded foyer (decorated with paintings by local artists), we were instantly put at our ease. Cream tea? No problem. Cream tea for four, in the garden, it'll be five minutes. It was as easy as that. Out into the garden, my breath was taken away by the gloriously verdant gardens. The hotel is set at the head of a deep V-shaped valley, running down to the sea and a little rocky cove. Immediately behind the hotel, there are landscaped terraces with overflowing pots of flowers, quiet fish ponds and plenty of comfortable wooden furniture. It truly is a haven. And then our cream tea arrived, carried out with some ceremony by two very smartly dressed waiters. No need to ask for extra hot water, it came as standard.

Cream tea - Meudon Country House Hotel

A basketful of fresh, warm scones, pots of tea and got water and brimming bowls of thick, sticky, fruited jam and a piled bowl of clotted cream. We asked where the cream came from. The hotel proprietor pointed to the cows in the field over the road saying, “Those cows produce the milk which is sent to the creamery”.

A rather scrummy scone - Meudon Country House Hotel, Cornwall

The scones were warm, light and fluffy with a satisfyingly crispy crust. Accompanied by the sticky red jam and thick, yellow cream they were perfection. To our shame we soon polished off all of the cream and jam. Both bowls were cheerfully replenished by the waiters, along with fresh tea, water and milk.

Tea in the Meudon Garden is a relaxed affair. Time slows down, and the peaceful garden with its abundant, colourful flowers, sounds of birds and cows and comfy sears (and sun loungers too!) is the perfect place to while away a late summer afternoon. The staff seemed genuinely delighted and comfortable for their guests to relax and potter. Needing to walk off a little of the tea and make room for dinner we enjoyed exploring the cakey gardens, with numerous paths winding between the vegetation down to the bay. We took it a little further and made our way home along the cliff top coastal path. With stunning views over the open sea to Falmouth and the sheltered I let of the Helford passage, this was a perfect way to round off a quintessentially Cornish afternoon.

Wonderful views with your cream tea

I don't know about you - but that scone has left my mouth watering! What a wonderful accidental discovery! It sounds like the perfect afternoon to me, and those scones look scrummy topped with lashings of Rodda's cream!

A Cornish Cream Tea for one person at Meudon Hotel consists of two homemade scones, Cornish strawberry jam and Cornish clotted cream served with a pot of Twinings Tea - all for £6

A big thank you to Ele for sharing her cream tea adventure with us - hopefully we'll see some more of Ele's adventures in the future!

If you have a cream tea adventure that you would like to share with us please get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Tea from England?

Hello there,

I hope you have enjoyed tea month at Tea With Me and Friends, we have certainly enjoyed sharing our new tea knowledge and trying lots of different teas...something we are going to continue doing and sharing!

I thought we would end tea month with a look at some homegrown tea - now if you joined us earlier in the month you will know that tea is traditionally grown in China and India. But did you know that there is tea being grown in England too....on the Tregothnan Estate near Truro, Cornwall to be precise!

Cornish grown tea leaves
Photo from Tregothnan website

The estate has been growing and selling tea locally since about 2000, but it is now appearing in more and more places....including it seems Waitrose! Lorna and I discovered this tea recently when Mum decided to order it with her Mother's Day afternoon tea at Browns Hotel, London.

The estate now grows and blends tea creating a range of different teas and herbal infusions, including the Great British Tea, which we sampled at Browns Hotel. This is a blend of Cornish tea leaves and Assam, which the estate created for 10 Downing Street, to celebrate the government's GREAT initiative which is inviting the world to trade with Britain. The tea when brewed has a wonderful warm colour and a great strong taste, which we think could be enjoyed at any time of the day.

Great British Tea - Tregothnan, Cornwall
Photo from website

The Great British Tea is available in both bags and as a loose leaf tea - 10 sachets costs £4.00 or 25g of leaves costs£5.25. 

If you fancy trying the range for yourself or finding out a bit more about British grown tea, pop by the Tregothnan Estate website.

If you've tried any of the Tregothnan teas we'd love to hear what you thought of them.....

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel

The Great Scone Debate Rumbles On!

Hello there....

So, there are just two days left to vote in our Great Scone debate and we've seen it swing both ways so far. As I write we've had 35 lovely voters - and "cream first" is currently in the lead with 57% of the votes!

Now with all this talk of scones I decided to do a little bit of digging around (thanks Wikipedia) this lovely sweet treat....and try and find out a little bit more about the different ways of dressing your scone.

The Devonshire (Devon) way of doing it is the preferred way of Lorna and myself.....the scone is split down the middle and slathered with clotted cream and topped by some sticky sweet jam! Traditionally scones should be served warm (preferably fresh from the oven) and butter is not used at all.

Now interestingly enough in Cornwall...apparently they used a sweet white roll in the beginning instead of scones - known as a Cornish Split. These sweet rolls would have been buttered first, then the jam would have been added and finally a dollop of clotted cream piled on top. Commercially you will probably not find these sweet white rolls anymore.....instead you will find scones but they will be dressed in the same way.

So, have I got your mouth watering with all this sweet talk? When I got home from work earlier I really wanted some scones....so I got baking! Now there are so many different scone recipes out there its often hard to know which one to try, but I've recently come across the Scone Advisor website....which I have to say is fabulous...anything you want to know about scones they can probably help you with (including where you can find the best scones when out and about!). So I decided to try their fruit scone recipe this evening and this is the end result....

 

Now please don't judge how flat they look (I think I handled the dough a little bit too much before baking), but I did manage to split them in half and smoother them in cream and jam (see photo above). I would definitely recommend their fruit scone recipe, its very scrummy!

 

So......we hope you've enjoyed our great scone debate so far...you still have a little longer to vote in the poll if you fancy joining in...which way do you dress your scone?

 

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel