It's Competition time - Squires Exhibition 2018

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends!

**** COMPETITION NOW CLOSED ****

Today we are very excited to share some news with you - this weekend it's the annual Squires Kitchen Exhibition at the Maltings in Farnham.

Not heard of the exhibition before...well its a haven for cake decorators with live demonstrations by star guests, inspirational designs in the Wedding Cake Showroom and Competition Hall, book signings and mini classes. Plus you can shop until you drop in the marketplace!

The demonstrations are great for learning new skills and getting inspiration, with sessions like Chocolate Skills by Mark Tilling (who you might remember from GBBO Crème de la Crème), Stencilling Skills by Tessa Whitehouse and a floral masterclass led by Alan Dunn. I can vouch for how good the live demos are - as I've previously attended one of Mark's chocolate demonstrations and thoroughly enjoyed learning how to work with chocolate!

Squires Exhibition takes place over two days, with the demonstrations taking place throughout the weekend:

Saturday 10th March 2018 10.00am - 5.00pm
Sunday 11th March 2018 10.00am - 5.00pm

All of this takes place in the Maltings in Farnham, Surrey. The Maltings is set in the heart of the town, it's a cultural hub allowing people to create, learn and discover. There are also several places to eat in the Maltings.....and they do great cake!

For more information visit the Squires Exhibition Website

Now for the even more exciting news - thanks to the lovely people at Squires Kitchen, we have two VIP tickets to give away! All you need to do to enter is visit our Facebook page and say hello on the Squires Exhibition post! 

Now for the boring bits....

The competition will run from Tuesday 6th March 2018 and will close at 6pm on Thursday 8th March 2018, entries received after the closing time will not be included.

The winner will be picked at random and announced on Facebook on Friday 9th March 2018, the VIP tickets will be left for the winner on the door of the venue for collection.

Entrants must live in the UK.

The prize does not include travel or any other costs incurred.

No alternative prizes will be offered.

Head over to our Facebook page to enter now - good luck!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Afternoon Tea News....Valentines 2016 at The Lancaster, London

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - we hope you are well today.

With Valentines Day just around the corner we thought we would share with you some of the more romantic afternoon teas that we have discovered this February. We are staring today with a look at the Valentines Afternoon Tea on offer at Lancaster London.

Lancaster London

Guests can enjoy this romantic afternoon tea between Wednesday 10th February and Tuesday 16th February 2016, everyone will be greeted by Laurent-Perrier Rosé Champagne, a hand written menu and a beautifully laid table, scattered with rose petals.

Priced at £45 per head, the Valentine’s Afternoon Tea features romantic sweet treats including heart shaped macaroons, Champagne & chocolate opera cake, passion fruit & raspberry lollypops; and freshly baked scones with rose & strawberry jam.

Lancaster London - Valentines 2016 Afternoon Tea

The menu also includes savoury classics with a romantic twist such oyster beignet topped with caviar, asparagus and spiced tomato tarts; and a selection of fine finger sandwiches accompanied by specially blended, rose infused tea.

Valentines Oysters - Lancaster London

The Lancaster London are also holding a competition with this afternoon tea - all Valentine’s bookings will automatically be entered into this exclusive competition, for a chance to win a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Rosé Champagne with two official glass flutes.

In order to be entered the Afternoon Tea booking must be made between Wednesday 10 February and Tuesday 16 February 2016.

The Lancaster London Valentine’s Afternoon Tea will be served in the hotel’s elegant first floor Lounge Bar between 2pm - 5.30pm. For more information pop by the Lancaster London website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time to Announce a Winner!

Hello there,

Welcome back to another post from Tea With Me and Friends....as you know we are now two years old and to celebrate we have been running a blog competition to win a tea adventure at Piacha in London.

Well, the competition closed on Friday....and we are very pleased to announce our lucky winner.....

Tea With Me and Friends Winner!

Congratulations Nicci!

We will be in touch with more information about your fab prize!

We would like to say a huge thank you to Pia from Piacha for providing us with our blog birthday competition prize...if you want to know a bit more about this fab tea bar in London visit their website or take a peek at our recent blog post.

We'd also like to thank everyone who entered and everyone who continues to join us on our afternoon tea adventures!

Tea With Me and Friends

If you want to see more from us don't forget that we have a YouTube channel where we post regular vlogs...from baking scones and cakes to ruling the country....its all covered in our vlog posts!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for...another celebration!

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends...doesn't time fly....at the end of June we will be celebrating two tea-riffic years of writing this little blog!

Cheers! Tea With Me and Friends celebrate two years!

** COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED **

We are constantly surprised at how this blog grows and can't thank everyone enough for their continued support...we're so pleased that you all enjoy a spot of afternoon tea as much as we do! We may not have made it to the finals of the UK Blog Awards again, but we are very proud of our new logo, our Facebook page and YouTube channel which are all new additions in the last year.

More than anything we love meeting and talking with new and old tea lovers - both in person and virtually!

We'd like to say a HUGE thank you to all the hotels and brands who have worked with us in the last year. We have had some amazing afternoon tea adventures and tried some scrummy new teas! We'd also like to say a HUGE thank you to all our lovely guest bloggers....and to Connie...our first guest vlogger! 

If you want to share your adventures please get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!

Do you remember when Lorna dressed her scone the "wrong way"?!

Lastly we would like to say the BIGGEST thank you to all our beau-tea-ful readers....thank you for coming back each week and reading our ramblings and watching our vlogs! Now for the exciting bit....we are very lucky to have another fab prize to give away this year to celebrate our Blog Birthday....this time we are joined by the lovely Pia from Piacha who is giving one lucky winner and a friend and tea-filled adventure....

Piacha Taste Journey

Piacha taste journey –  teas, cakes and jazz

an afternoon Piacha tea tasting with Pia

-two guests for one & a half hours at Piacha tea bar & shop, 280 Upper Street, London N1 2TZ

-discuss your taste profile and Pia will help you to select 8 teas to taste from the Piacha range

-sample your teas with matching cakes and sandwiches

-finish with a refreshing Piacha tea smoothie, homemade at Piacha with ice tea base, fruits & berries

Having spent a wonderful morning at Piacha recently I can confirm that this is a lovely prize to win, the teas are really good and Pia is knowledgeable and super friendly - you'll be in great hands!

The lovely Pia!

Sooooo.....how do you win this lovely prize I hear you say....

Either leave a comment here on the blog, telling us your favourite tea or send an email to us at teawithmeandfriends@gmail.com with your favourite tea and your name.

It's as simple as that! We'd love it if you also followed the blog or liked us on Facebook....but you don't have to!  A BIG thank you to Pia for giving us this fab prize - we know the winner will have a tea-riffic time!

Now for the boring bits....

The competition will run from Monday 8th June 2015 and will close at 6pm on Friday 26th June 2015, entries received after the closing time will not be included.

The winner will be picked at random and announced on the blog on 28th June 2015.

Entrants must live in the UK.

The prize does not include travel or any other costs incurred.

No alternative prizes will be offered.

The winner will be sent a voucher for the Piacha Taste Journey, which needs to be redeemed before 31st December 2015. The winner will need to book the experience directly with Piacha.

This post will stay at the top of the blog until the 26th June - for new afternoon tea posts please scroll down!

Another Tea With Me and Friends Afternoon Tea Adventure!

Good luck everyone!

Thanks for celebrating another tea-riffic year with us and thanks for popping by today!

Rachel & Lorna

The Friday Review .....Yogi Tea

Hello there,

Yet another Friday is upon us....so grab a cup of tea and enjoy this week's Friday tea review! This week we have a selection of herbal infusions for you, celebrating the new brand launch of Yogi Teas. We were really lucky to receive this lovely hamper of teas and tea items...

Yogi Tea isn't just about the tea, they have a strong focus on Wellbeing. For over 40 years Yogi Tea has been producing herb and spice teas based on Ayurvedic tea recipes, which are designed to promote individual well-being and encourage the balance between body, mind and soul. The website is full of wellbeing information, including lots of yoga poses.

Yogi Tea comes in the form of teabags and brewing instructions are given on each box. I love the little inspirational tags on the teabags...

Yogi Tea

Let the tea tasting begin!

Tea tasting - Yogi Tea

We had six teas to sample....if you take a look at the Yogi Tea website you'll see that this represents only a small selection from the teas on offer! We had the following....

A selection of Yogi Teas

We began our tea tasting adventure with the Bedtime tea....

Bedtime Tea - Yogi Tea

This soothing tea is a blend of fennel, chamomile, peppermint, cardamom, lemon balm, lemon grass, valerian root, sage, lavender flowers and nutmeg. It needs to be brewed for approximately five-six minutes and should be enjoyed in the evenings to help aid relaxation before bedtime. Once brewed its a beautiful amber colour and has a slightly earthy aroma.

I do sometimes find it difficult to drop off to sleep at night, so I was particularly interested in this tea. It's a very soothing cup of tea, which did leave me feeling more relaxed. There is a slight sweet flavour to the tea, but nothing artificial or overpowering. 

From here we moved onto the Throat Comfort tea....

Throat Comfort - Yogi Tea

This tea has been designed to comfort you if you are suffering from a sore throat. The herbs, fruit and spices in this blend include liquorice, fennel, cinnamon, orange peel, ginger, thyme, mullein, citrus extract, orange extract, cardamom, black pepper, cloves, turmeric root. This is a rather sweet tasting tea and we all thought that the taste and the aroma were not the same.

We brewed this tea for five minutes too and I have to say it has quite a magically effect as once you have swallowed a mouthful of this tea you are left with what feels like a coating on your throat. Lorna, her hubby and I all experienced it so we can't all be mad (can we?). Admittedly none of us had a sore throat at the time, but I can see how this would have a soothing effect.

Next we moved onto the Stomach Ease tea....

Yogi Tea - Stomach Ease

This tea has won a Great Taste award in 2014.

The spices in this comfort blend include cardamom, fennel, coriander, barley malt, liquorice, peppermint, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cloves. The tea is a light brown colour when brewed for approximately five minutes. Again, it has a slight earthy aroma, it's another soothing blend that has a sweet aftertaste.

We then tried the Classic tea...

This blend is the tea that Yogi Bhajan originally served to his yoga students.

Another light brown tea, the ingredients include cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, black pepper, cinnamon oil. You can really smell the cardamon once the tea is brewed and this tea is less sweet than the others. A very pleasant cuppa!

Something a little different was the Choco tea....

Yogi Tea - Choco

This is a warming, sweet blend which includes cocoa shells, liquorice, cinnamon, carob, barley malt, cardamom, ginger, cloves, cinnamon extract, vanilla extract, black pepper, ginger oil, vanilla beans.

We brewed this cup for seven minutes and it produced a dark brown tea. We tried this without milk, and it tasted a bit like a watery hot chocolate - therefore I think adding milk would give the flavour more depth. It definitely reminded us all of hot chocolate, and had a chocolately aroma,  although it was quite sweet.

Finally we sampled the Licorice tea...

Yogi Tea - Licorice Tea

Another earthy blend, the ingredients include liquorice, cinnamon, orange peel, ginger, cardamom, roasted chicory, cloves, orange oil, black pepper, vanilla extract. This was much sweeter than we thought it would be, we could easily taste the cinnamon and it reminded us of honey.

For more information about Yogi Tea and to see the other blends in their range please visit their website. We'd like to thank Yogi Tea for sending us all these teas to try, but please note that this gift hamper has not effected our taste buds and all opinions expressed are our own!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for....a flash competition!

Hello there!

Happy Friday! Welcome back to a cheeky little flash competition from Tea With Me and Friends!

The lovely people over at Country Living Magazine have given us two complimentary tickets to their Spring Fair to give away to one lucky person! Let's find out a little more about the fair.....

The Country Living Spring Fair takes place from 18th-22nd  March in the Business Design Centre, London and is the perfect way to start the new season and get inspired with lots of ideas for your home and garden with an array of carefully selected exhibitors, from small producers to craftspeople from across the British Isles. Alongside a unique shopping experience, you'll be able to see the pages of the magazine come to life in a range of seasonal features. From lively talks and hands on workshops, to lamb feeding and a beautiful Spring Garden with experts on hand to give you advice, this year’s Spring Fair promises to be a wonderful celebration of the season.

  

Birchall Tea Room: Take time out to relax and catch up with your friends. Treat yourself to refreshing fine tea, accompanied by the choice of fresh baked cakes.

Craft Workshops: Get the chance to get interactive with the ‘Craft and Create Rooms’. Our classes involve everything from needle felting fairy tales, kite wall decorations, block printing a tea towel to patchwork, quilting and textiles. These sessions from talented craftspeople will bring out your imaginative side and leads you to taking your final creation home with you

Garden Feature and Theatre:  See the garden masterpiece created by Lucy Summers, this glorious display of explosion of colour from beautiful spring floral with give you inspiration for your own garden, as well as show you how to plant flowers and edible produce including tomatoes, aubergines and beans. 

Green and Black’s Taste Experience: Try up to 20 unique flavoursome organic products, also hear the In-house celebrities reveal how Green and Black’s is not just a chocolate bar.

Doesn't that sound wonderful! Find out more about the show on the Country Living website.

So, now onto the important bit - how do you win the tickets?

It's simple - just send an email to 

teawithmeandfriends@gmail.com

With "Country Living Competition" in the subject line, make sure you include your name in the body of the email. We will then pull one lucky winner out of a hat when the competition closes on Sunday 15th March at 6pm. Tickets will be posted to the winner First Class on Monday 16th March, as soon as we have received confirmation of postal address.

Terms & Conditions:

Competition is open to UK residents only
The prize is one pair of tickets for any day between 18th - 22nd March 2015
The prize does not include travel or any other costs incurred
The tickets will be posted by first class mail as soon as the winner has confirmed their postal address

Entries via email only
The competition closes at 6pm on Sunday 15th March 2015, entries received after this date will not be included in the draw

Good Luck!

Rachel & Lorna

Time for a Spot of Winning Afternoon Tea

Hello there,

Welcome back to another guest post at Tea With Me and Friends. Do you remember in the summer Lorna and I celebrated the blog running for a year with a little competition? The Ampersand Hotel in South Kensington helped us celebrate by giving us an afternoon tea for two to give away. Lots of readers joined in the fun, but it was Lucy from Foodie Force who was the lucky winner.

Lucy recently enjoyed her afternoon tea prize.....let's see what she thought of her afternoon tea experience....

Two minutes from South Kensington station the Ampersand Hotel and The Drawing Rooms have been beautifully designed. The Drawing Room instantly put me at ease. It has a wonderful warm and homely interior with freshly baked goods on display (a FoodieForce paradise).

We opted for the traditional afternoon tea, which began with Tartines....

Highlights had to be the coronation chicken and smoked salmon. The coronation chicken had the right balance of creaminess and spice. 

Service at the Ampersand Hotel is seriously relaxed, now this won't be to everyone's cup of tea (pardon the pun), but for me I personally found this refreshing. Where you are quietly allowed to enjoy the wonderful food and the company of friends without being rushed. 

What followed have to be the best scones I have ever had. Now this is no exaggeration, this woman knows her scones and these were super light and wonderfully fluffy. With the addition of clotted cream and strawberry jam, all I could have wished for is that they were bigger. 

The Ampersand definitely have their pâtisserie down to a fine art.

The lemon meringue tart, chocolate brownie and English breakfast tea bonbon were seriously delicious.   

A wonderful afternoon tea. I very much look forward to visiting again in the future to stay in their superbly modern boutique hotel. 

We'd like to thank Lucy for sharing her experience with us, to read the full blog post please visit Lucy's blog - Foodie Force. We're really pleased that Lucy enjoyed afternoon tea at the Ampersand as much as we do, her photos certainly made our mouth's water! 

The traditional afternoon tea at the Ampersand costs £27.50 per person or £39.50 with a glass of Champagne. The Ampersand offers a range of different afternoon teas, including themed and vegetarian options. For more information please visit their website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time to....Announce a Winner!

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends!

We are now officially a year old....hasn't that time flown by in a blur of wonderful (and not so wonderful) afternoon teas! We'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone for their support in this first year and a big thank you to everyone who joined us in our fab Birthday competition.

I'd also like to say a big thank you to The Ampersand Hotel for joining us in our celebrations and for providing our wonderful prize - a champagne afternoon tea for two!

Afternoon tea - Ampersand Hotel
Photo from Website

We opted to use a number generator to pick the winner from all the entries......

So who was our lucky winner.....

(Hmmmm...technology is failing me today!)

The winner is Lucy - congratulations!

Lucy left us the following comment....

I love the intricate biscuits in the shape of a musical instrument. My favourite thing about afternoon tea is that it is all about decadence. There is no rushing, you get to try new twists on a traditional afternoon tea. But best of all you get to eat the cakes first should you choose.

Lucy please can you contact me on teawithmeandfriends@gmail.com with your contact details and I will send you your voucher for tea! We hope that you enjoy your tea at The Ampersand and maybe share some photos with us afterwards!

We're looking forward to sharing another year of afternoon teas with everyone....and don't forget if you would like to feature as a guest blogger please get in touch!

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time to Celebrate!

Hello there,

**Competition is now closed**

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - today we are very excited as our little blog is nearly a year old! It's been an amazing first year, we're featured over 60 different afternoon teas, including experiences from the 1950s and the 1920s! We've featured large hotels and tiny tea rooms and lots in between!

We've met pastry chefs and poked our noses into hotel kitchens, and we've featured afternoon teas from so many lovely guest bloggers. Plus we were finalists in the UK Blog Awards 2014.

Most importantly we've met loads of wonderful people, all united in our passion for a spot of afternoon tea! We can't thank you enough for your support this year and we hope you continue to join us on our afternoon tea adventures as we have lots more to share with you!

Competition Time....

We are delighted to announce that we are being joined by The Ampersand Hotel in celebrating our first blog birthday. To celebrate we are holding a little competition and The Ampersand Hotel has kindly given us a champagne afternoon tea for two to give away!

Ampersand Hotel Afternoon Tea
Photo from Website

The winner of our competition is in for a lovely experience at the Ampersand Hotel, which is one of our favourite spots for tea! The present day hotel opened in the Summer of 2012 in South Kensington and is home to Head Chef Chris Golding and the talented Pastry Chef Ji Sun Shin.

What do you need to do to enter this little competition I hear you cry - well just leave us a comment under this post telling us your favourite thing about afternoon tea! You do not need a blogger profile to enter, and you do not need to follow the blog (but we would love it if you did!).

Please remember if you are visiting us from an IPhone you will need to click onto the mobile view at the bottom of this page to leave a comment in the comment box.

The boring bits....

The competition will run from 8am on Monday 2nd June and will close on midday on Thursday 26th June 2014, the winner will be picked at random and announced on the blog on 27th June 2014.

Entrants must be over 18 years old and must live in the UK.

The winner will be sent a voucher for a champagne afternoon tea for two at the hotel, which needs to be redeemed before 30th November 2014.

This post will stay at the top of the blog until the 27th June - for new afternoon tea posts please scroll down!

Tea With Me and Friends!

Good luck to everyone in the competition and thank you again for all of your support.

Best wishes,

Rachel & Lorna

National Cake Week!

Now I have to say that I didn't even realise that there is a National Cake Week...but apparently there is and this year it runs from 7th - 13th October. This wonderful celebration of cake started quite recently in June 2011 by Lynne Hill the founder of the Clandestine Cake Club.

National Cake Week is all about celebrating cake in all its glory....whether baking, sharing or eating...its time to enjoy and celebrate good old fashioned cake!

Running along side National Cake Week is a cake baking competition....all you need to do is bake a cake and enter it on online! Simples!

Now we all know that here at the Tea With Me and Friends blog we love to eat cake....but we also love to bake cakes and so I got baking! I have entered the following cake....my Blackberry Mini Marvel......

Piled high with fresh blackberries - perfect for afternoon tea!

 

This is a 5inch vanilla sponge cake, which has been layered together with freshly whipped cream and my homemade blackberry jam. I have topped the cake off with more cream and a pile of blackberries picked at my local park!

 

I'd love it if you could pop by the National Cake Week website and vote for me. The competition ends at 8pm on the 13th October.

 

If you are celebrating National Cake Week we'd love to know how!

 

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel