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

Time for Tea at Brown's - The English Tea Rooms

Hello there,

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends. After all the themes, quirks and somethings a little bit different that we've enjoyed lately it was wonderful to enjoy a very traditional afternoon tea in The English Tea Rooms at Brown's in Mayfair to celebrate Mother's Day.

The jubilant mood was set with a glass of champagne (or a non-alcoholic cocktail if you preferred) and we took our time choosing our teas.  Getting in the spirit of Tea Month we opted for three different blends of black tea (optimal for sharing, don't you know!) and were all thrilled to try the Cornish tea which had a lovely depth of flavour and just goes to show that we Brits can do anything when we put our minds to it, even grow tea in our capricious climate!

Afternoon tea - Browns Hotel, Mayfair

The sandwiches were delicate and divine with lots of variety and subtle, well-paired flavours.  They were also bountiful but we piously declined subsequent plates so that we had plenty of room for the delights to follow.

Afternoon tea sandwiches
Browns Hotel

The scones (how do you emphasise the 'o' in text so that Rachel knows I'm pronouncing it correctly?) were petite, warm and simply scrumptious.  There was no shortage of cream and jam although shockingly I did have to request a top up of cream with our second helping of scones!

Scrumptious scones!
Browns Hotel

There was a lovely selection of dainty pastries and fancies atop the cake stand which were just the right size.  My favourite had to be the decadent chocolate tart which was simply to die for but I was somewhat disappointed by the battenburg cake which didn't have the distinctive almond taste I was anticipating.  Never happy to end a paragraph on a low note, I would also add that the lavender cake took me by surprise and was full of aromatic flavour which I was not expecting.

The afternoon tea sweet treats on offer at
 Browns Hotel were quite beautiful!

From the cake trolley (which we sadly never saw) we all enjoyed a slice of lemon drizzle cake which was moist and delicious.

Fresh from the Browns Hotel cake trolley - lemon drizzle cake

All in all we had a wonderful afternoon with fabulous food, superb service (if a tad rushed in the middle) in a splendid setting.  There is very little that could be done to improve this tremendous traditional afternoon tea.

A traditional afternoon tea at Browns costs £41.50 per person, if you would like to indulge in a glass of champagne (who wouldn't!) it will cost £51.50 per person. This is a high end afternoon tea, but the food and drink is of a wonderful quality and is plentiful.

If you would like to know more about the afternoon tea experience at Browns, pop by their website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Lorna

Time for Tea - Mother's Day Special.....The Stockwell Arms

Hello there,

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends. Today we have a wonderful guest post for you, written by Jess who I met on Twitter. I recently read on her blog about her early Mother's Day celebrations and as this is something we do with our mum every year I asked her to share her experience. Here is Jess' review of The Stockwell Arms.....

In the historical town of Colchester in Essex, sits a recently refurbished Medieval Restaurant and Real Ale Hall called The Stockwell Arms. It's one of Colchester's most historic buildings situated in the Dutch Quarter. Not only does The Stockwell Arms have the most incredible lunch and dinner menus, they also produce a beautiful Afternoon Tea. Which I experienced whilst celebrating Mothers Day early this year, due to my Mother's hectic social life and the fact she couldn't possibly fit us in on Sunday 30th March!

Right, let's get down to the nitty gritty! On the lowest tier of the three tier cake stand, sat a vast selection of Finger sandwiches which were offered on a choice of white and rye bread. The selection included beef with horseradish, salmon, egg with onion and ham with whole grain mustard. My favourite was probably the egg and onion.

Afternoon tea - The Stockwell Arms, Colchester

The second tier contained a medley of impressive looking cakes including a passionfruit cheesecake, an orange cake, an apple and cream horn and a choice of chocolate cake, Victoria sponge and a coffee and walnut cake. For me it was a tough choice between the apple and cream horn and the passionfruit cheesecake, both equally delicious in their own special way!

The Afternoon Tea was finished off with a choice of a plain or a fruit scone offered with an assortment of local Tiptree jams and clotted cream. I've always preferred a plain scone, but the fruit scone was flavoured beautifully.

The choice of tea was incredible. They had everything from a traditional English tea to Chinese flowering teas! I tried the Jasmine fairies tea, which was delicious and my favourite of the herbal teas, the classic peppermint tea. If tea isn't for you there is also the choice of speciality coffees. Best of all the tea was unlimited, meaning you could try every flavour on the menu!

Being a Mother's Day treat and therefore a special occasion we decided to splash out and treat ourselves to a class of Prosecco each.

Its alright, I can discuss the price as my Mum is nosey and looked at the receipt. We spent a little over £60.00. It worked out as £14.00 each for the Afternoon Tea itself and just over £5.00 for a glass of Prosecco each. Great value for money in my opinion.

My only criticism (if you can even call it that!) would be the size of the cakes, scones and finger sandwiches. There was enough food to comfortably feed more than three people. In fact, there was that much food we even took a goody bag home.

All in all The Stockwell Arms really impressed and I would highly recommend it for a Mother's Day treat. For more information take a look at The Stockwell Arms website. 

Written by Jess Abbott, check out her blog 

Wow - that cake stand looks and sounds very impressive! I don't know about you, but my tummy is rumbling a little after reading that wonderful description!

A big thank you to Jess for sharing her Mother's Day afternoon tea experience with us. If you'd like to appear in a future guest post please get in touch!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for Tea......Mother's Day 2014

Hello there,

With Mother's Day less than a week away I thought it would be a nice idea to take a peek at some of the afternoon teas that have been specially created for Mother's Day 2014.

Firstly we have this scrumptious feast from the Ampersand Hotel in South Kensington, London......

Mother's Day afternoon tea - Ampersand Hotel

This tea includes classic Victoria sponge, carrot cake and raspberry macaroons and is served in the Drawing Room.

The following scummy looking tea has been created by Andaz hotel on Liverpool Street, London and is served in their 1901 Restaurant......

Mother's Day afternoon tea - Andaz Hotel

This can be served as a traditional afternoon tea, with a cocktail or with a glass of bubbles.

Next we move onto pretty Mother's Day afternoon tea created at the Langham hotel in London.....

Mother's Day afternoon tea - Langham Hotel

This scrummy looking tea includes candy floss, a white chocolate and raspberry done and mini pink and white cookies.

Or how about this wonderful looking afternoon tea created by St Ermins hotel in London....

Mother's Day afternoon tea - St Ermins

This tea features a peanut butter cake, a lemon meringue pie and free flowing Bellini's!

Don't they all look lovely!

We are treating our mum to her annual Mother's Day afternoon tea at The English Tea Rooms in Browns Hotel, London this year. Apparently this was a favourite place for Queen Victoria to indulge in a spot of afternoon tea and we are looking forward to indulging ourselves! Pop back next weekend to see the tea that we've enjoyed!

Don't forget that we'd also love to hear about your afternoon teas - if you are spoiling your mother this weekend tell us all about it!

Thank you for popping by today,
Rachel

Time for Tea....Hilton London Park Lane

Hello there,

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends! I recently indulged in a themed afternoon tea with a difference....as this one featured rather a lot of chocolate!

I ventured into London with my friend Kirsty to try the Chocoholics afternoon tea at Podium Restaurant located in the London Hilton Park Lane. As well as featuring rather a lot of chocolate, the tea is also themed around Pop Art. It's quite an impressive looking afternoon tea....but is there too much style and not enough substance??

Chocoholics Afternoon Tea
Podium Restaurant, London

Now this tea might look wonderful on its modern cake stand....but as you can see it is a rather large stand!

The tea is served on modern, white china and the cake stand is metal and glass. Unfortunately the stand was put in the middle of Kirsty and I on our small table, which meant that it hampered conversation a bit! We rearranged our table in the end, moving the stand to one side so we could see each other again!

Now this tea starts with the savouries....which you'll be pleased to know do not feature any chocolate at all! There is a selection of five open sandwiches served to each person......

Afternoon tea sandwiches
Podium Restaurant

These were quite big really...not your usual dainty finger sandwiches! The bread however was very fresh and the toppings generous. The selection included prawn cocktail, ham and tomato, cream cheese and cucumber, smoked salmon and egg mayonnaise. My favourite sandwich was probably the prawn cocktail, which was rather tasty....closely followed by the cream cheese and cucumber. Both Kirsty and I agreed that the cream cheese was amazing! While we're discussing the savouries I'd like to draw your eye to the egg mayonnaise sandwich on the far right - I have never seen so much egg mayo piled onto a thin piece of bread! It was tasty, but there was far too much of it. It oozed everywhere as you tried to eat it!

Once we finished with the open sandwiches we moved onto the scones, which were served warm on the bottom of the cake stand.....

Afternoon tea scones - with chocolate chips!

Now these were a good size, not too big and not too small...but we were a bit annoyed about the selection on offer...two were chocolate chip, one was plain and one was fruit! We ate one chocolate chip scone each and shared the plain one between us. The scones were a good texture, but to be honest the main attraction here was the toppings. We had traditional clotted cream and strawberry preserve (which was really lovely in texture and flavour) and then the best bit....there was a pot of the most amazing chocolate spread! Not the norm and Lorna will probably raise her eyebrow when she reads this...but I loved it!

After scones we moved up a tier....onto those attractive fruit and chocolate cupcakes.....

Chocolate and fruit cupcakes
Podium Restaurant

Now as you can see there are four very different cupcakes....and two of us.....and no extras provided.....so Kirsty and I had "that conversation" where we decided what each of us would eat. As tea was served we were told that there were boxes available if we wanted to take anything home with us, so we decided to share two of the cupcakes and take the other two home with us. However, cutting them in half in order to share was quite messy!

We tried the chocolate and blueberry cake (aka the purple one in the photo) and the white chocolate and pineapple cake (aka the one behind the purple one in the photo!). Now, if you have ever baked at home with fruit you'll know that you often end up with a bit of a weird texture to your cake. And I'm afraid that's the case here....there is rather a lot of icing on top of the cake (good if you like icing!) and then a rather soggy cake underneath. We could taste the different flavours, but it didn't make up for the odd texture.

We then moved to the top of the cake stand....which is extremely creative and appealing....this is where a lot more chocolate features.....

Chocoholics afternoon tea
Podium Restaurant

Isn't that appealing? But do you see the slight issue again? 

There is a lot of different items.....but only one of each (and no extras)...so again we needed to have "that conversation"! We decided we would continue in the way we started and cut the items in half - making this a very messy experience!

Among other things on this top tier we had a lemon cheesecake, a chocolate and marmalade cake, sable biscuits and a whoopee pie. Those little chocolate balls you can spy in the glass are edible and really rather scrummy....just a little difficult to liberate from the glass!

Some of the flavours in this tea really worked....we loved the chocolate cake with the marmalade which came in the squeezy tube....but other bits weren't so good....the lemon cheesecake had a odd taste to it and I couldn't tell you what flavour whoopee pie we had.

Chocoholics afternoon tea

This afternoon tea is served throughout the week and weekend and costs £32.50 per person or £40.50 per person if you fancy a glass of bubbles with your afternoon tea. Its a busy restaurant and so was quite noisy when we first arrived, but we soon got used to that. There was also live music provided in the form of a singer with a guitar.

If I am honest I think this afternoon tea looks amazing, but it doesn't all taste that good. It's also a little disappointing that there are so many exciting looking items and only one of each - if you don't like sharing your food you will miss out on items. I also found it a very messy experience, with lots of chocolate cream. I also wish there were less items, but duplicates of them.

On the plus side, the chocolate isn't over powering - more a nice theme running through the feast, and therefore it can probably be enjoyed by chocoholics and non-chocoholics alike!

For more information about the chocoholics afternoon tea, pop by the Podium Restaurant website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel