Afternoon tea news.....a royal afternoon tea at Dorsett Shepherds Bush

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends....we're back today with some more afternoon tea news for you!

In celebration of Her Majesty The Queen’s 90th birthday, Dorsett Shepherds Bush is launching a special Queens Afternoon Tea for royalists and avid connoisseurs of the traditionally British institution from the 12th May 2016.

Located in the golden atrium of the hotel, Jin Bar is the perfect setting in which to celebrate something special. To commemorate the Queen’s 90th birthday, guests can enjoy an afternoon tea feast: savoury sandwiches filled with coronation chicken, smoked salmon, cucumber and cream cheese; sweet treats including macaroons, strawberries and cream, Battenberg cake and freshly baked scones served with Devonshire clotted cream and homemade strawberry preserve. 

Of course afternoon tea wouldn’t be complete without a great selection of traditional and herbal teas. Guests can take their pick from a refreshing array of teas including a zesty lemon and ginger infusion, a delicate China green or a palette-cleansing peppermint tea. Alternatively, opt for a light tea made from chamomile flowers renowned for their calming properties, Imperial Earl Grey scented with aromatic oil of Bergamot fused together with cornflowers, or a splendid English breakfast tea blended from the finest Broken Orange Pekoe teas from India and Kenya.

The Queen’s Afternoon Tea experience at Dorsett Shepherds Bush is served daily between 2pm – 5pm from 12th May – 12th June 2016. Prices start at £24.00 per person for a traditional afternoon tea. For more information pop by the Dorsett Shepherds Bush website.

If you enjoy this afternoon tea feast in the next month we'd love to hear all about it - drop us a line or send us a photo!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea....Radisson Blu Guildford

Hello there,

Welcome back to a very special guest blog post at Tea With Me and Friends!

This is a special post because we are joined by someone who has experienced their very first afternoon tea adventure.....and she is just eight years old! Connie visited the Radisson Blu in Guildford, Surrey with her family recently and she wanted to share her adventure with us....

Connie Lewis a review from Radisson Blu Guildford

Connie reporting for Tea With Me and Friends
from Radisson Blu Guildford

Today I have been to have afternoon tea to celebrate Mother's Day with my Nanny and also my brothers 11 birthday!

When we arrived we were shown the menu and given a choice of teas and for us kids a milkshake!  I chose strawberry and it was truly amazing. You could tell it was made with ice cream and real strawberries!

Afternoon tea - Radisson Blu Guildford

We had a selection of sandwiches that were delicious on fresh soft bread and my favourite were cucumber that had been cut in heart shapes.

Heart shaped afternoon tea sandwiches
Radisson Blu Guildford

I ate the pastries after, my favourite being a chocolate truffle.  We also had mini eclairs and raspberry tarts.  Homemade shortbread biscuits and fresh strawberries to dip into the chocolate sauce.  I noticed that mummy kept asking for milk as it was in very small jugs and when there was 7 of us it didn't last long.  I thought it would be nice if they had brought it over instead of mummy having to ask.

Afternoon tea pastries
Radisson Blu Guildford

Shortbread, cream and jam
Radisson Blu Guildford

The waiter asked us if it was a special occasion and mummy told him it was my brothers birthday yesterday.  He brought out a plate saying happy birthday with a lit candle. I liked that they did this.

I thought the scones were light and fresh not like the kind we have at home!! And plenty of them (we took 7 home in a take away box!)

I found my afternoon tea very exciting and hope my mum will take me again.

Mummy asked me to mention that it was a reasonable price for us kids to come along also!

It sounds like Connie had a wonderful first afternoon tea adventure. Connie also made a short video of her experience, take a peek at our YouTube channel to see more!

Connie and her family enjoyed a Queen of Hearts afternoon tea which costs £17.50 per adults and  £10.00 per child (under 12). You can choose four of the five afternoon tea fillings on offer, pick from Cheddar cheese, Cucumber, Egg mayonnaise, Honey roast ham or Smoked salmon. For more information about this tea visit the Radisson Blu website.

A huge thank you to Connie (and her family) for sharing her afternoon tea with us - we are so pleased that she enjoyed the experience! Don't forget to take a peek at Connie's vlog post too!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for Tea....Chessell Pottery Barns

Hello there,

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends. This weekend I escaped to the Isle of Wight for 36 hours with Joe. Whilst on our mini break we explored a lot of the island...but as you can imagine I made sure that we made time for a spot of afternoon tea too!

After looking through lots of tourist information I discovered Chessell Pottery Barns which promised a rather scrummy sounding afternoon tea. The cafe first launched a full afternoon tea in 2013 when they were joined by pastry chef Bridget Wells. The cafe at the pottery is very busy and you need to book afternoon tea at least 24 hours in advance...lets take a look to see if it's worth the wait.....

The afternoon tea is served on china which has been decorated at the pottery, ours had a very pretty strawberry pattern on it. The pottery is available to buy from the gift shop.

Afternoon tea
Chessell Pottery Barns

We began our afternoon tea feast with the savoury items on the bottom of the cake stand.....

Afternoon tea savouries - Chessell Pottery Barns

Our selection included ham finger sandwiches and egg and cucumber finger sandwiches on brown and white bread. There was also salmon and cream cheese served on fingers of focaccia and a beautiful mini cheese and onion quiche.

The sandwiches were fresh and there wasn't a crust in sight. The combination of egg mayonnaise and cucumber together was slightly odd - I think I prefer these fillings on their own. The salmon fingers were tasty and a good size. We also enjoyed the mini quiche, the filling tasted so good.... but the crust tasted slightly sweet (although it was very light).

Once we had enjoyed the savoury items we moved up a tier onto the scones.....

Strawberry jam and clotted cream ready for dressing scones!

Scones at Chessell Pottery Barns

We had a selection of plain scones and blueberry scones - all perfect in size and served warm (and wrapped). The scones all had a really good texture, not at all claggy, and were very fresh. I have never tried blueberry scones before, and really enjoyed the flavour.

Finally we made it to the top tier....the sweet selection.....

The sweet selection
Afternoon tea Chessell Pottery Barns

Now, I thought you might like a closer look at these sweets and so I have made a mini movie for you which features the raspberry choux pastry, the mini Victoria sponge cake and the beautiful strawberry tart.....

Don't they look wonderful? 

I particularly enjoyed the raspberry pastry which was filled with a tart raspberry cream. As well as the mini Victoria sponge, there was also a mini lemon and lime cake (a fabulous flavour combination). Both of these cakes were quite dense, but still tasted wonderful and were surprisingly light. The final sweet item was a chocolate and nut pastry, which Joe enjoyed.

Afternoon tea at Chessell Pottery Barns costs £14 per person and includes a choice of tea, coffee or soft drink. You also get to take away a little pottery keepsake once you have finished tea....

We got this beautiful little strawberry, which was a lovely touch. I think the cost of the afternoon tea per head is really good for the quality of the food on offer. 

Chessell Pottery Barns is open daily between the end of March and beginning of November. The pottery can be found three miles outside Yarmouth,  free parking is available. For more information please visit the Chessell Pottery Barns website.

Have you enjoyed a spot of afternoon tea on the Isle of Wight, if you have we would love to hear about it!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for Tea..... Warren House

Hi there,

A wonderful afternoon was had today at Warren House, an elegant Victorian mansion in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.  Rachel, Mum and I enjoyed a champagne afternoon tea with luxurious chocolate coated strawberries - a decadent addition to a traditional tea.

The china was contemporary and clean and the teas seemed to be a selection of Twinings tea bags (I'm not a tea snob and found my jasmine green tea to be very refreshing, but if you are an aficionado then this detail may be important to you) although I am unsure of the exact choices available as we were not offered a menu to peruse.

The food was delicious and the sandwiches had a home-made feel about them with a controversial hint of crust remaining.  The warm scones were delicious and we all enjoyed having our very own pot of cream to ourselves, particularly myself as although I enjoy sharing many things, food is not one of them!  The warm cakes that accompanied the scones were another variation from the norm that worked very well.

The pastries have a whole paragraph to themselves as for me they were the highlight of the afternoon.  Beautiful, bitter dark chocolate complemented rich Chantilly cream in the delicate profiteroles and the chocolate and caramel slice was to die for.  The minature carrot cupcake was moist and the shot of raspberry mousse was a refreshing, tangy alternative for your taste buds.

At £23.50 each for the classic afternoon tea, we felt this offered pretty good value as there were plenty of sweet treats and a good variety. If you want to sample the champagne afternoon tea that we had today that is slightly more expensive at £38.50 per person, but includes a glass of champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries.

Warren House provides a magnificent backdrop for your afternoon tea and and we enjoyed ours on the terrace which overlooks immaculate landscaped gardens and is a lovely place to relax the afternoon away.  It was a typical British summer's day (for all you non-Brits out there, that means it rained!) but we kept our stiff upper lips in place and stuck it out until the sunshine reemerged although we knew we could have easily been moved inside upon request.

The one problem with sitting outside was that the staff sometimes seemed to forget we were there.  However they were all charming when they were with us so maybe they were just trying to maintain an unpressurised environment, it's just a shame to run out of tea at afternoon tea.

 

However, I cannot leave you with that thought as overall our afternoon at Warren House was relaxing, pleasant and delicious.  This tea in the suburbs is definitively competition for the big city hotels.

Thank you for popping by today, we'd love it if you left us a comment to say hi!
Lorna & Rachel