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

Time for Tea....Amba Charing Cross

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - we hope you're having a tea-riffic day!

I am pleased to share with you our first afternoon tea of 2018 - recently Lorna and I went on an afternoon tea adventure in London with Alex and Becca, visiting Amba Hotel Charing Cross for some tea and cakes!

Afternoon tea at Amba Charing Cross is served in an area called The Terrace, which is a light and airy space at the front of the hotel, above The Strand. The Terrace has high ceilings and lots of natural daylight, it is a lovely spot for a catch up over afternoon tea.

The afternoon tea was served on a traditional stand, with pretty floral china plates and teacups. It's modern, but very floral!

As there were four of us we had two stands for the group and we were told we could have more items if we wanted them - so no fighting over the cakes on the top tier! It was a very traditional afternoon tea with finger sandwiches, scones served with clotted cream and strawberry jam and then a selection of cakes.

There were four different finger sandwiches to enjoy...

The varieties included:
Free range egg & watercress on white bread (v)

Oak smoked salmon & cream cheese on granary bread

English ham & sweet mustard on brown bloomer bread

Aged Keens farmhouse Cheddar & onion chutney (v)

The sandwiches were fresh, and cut into easy to eat finger sandwiches. I particularly enjoyed the cheese and chutney sandwich although there could have been a bit more filling. I was a bit disappointed with the egg sandwich as it had an extra filling....

Yep....that's quite chunky cucumber in with my egg! I've encountered this once before and I'm still not sure I'm convinced that this is a good conversation. I love an egg sandwich and I feel the cucumber compromises both the flavour and the texture!

Moving up the cake stand we next turned our attention to the scones, we had two scones each....but not enough cream and jam (a pet hate when you need to ask for more scone dressings!).

The scones were a generous size - probably a little two big as one was enough to enjoy with a full afternoon tea. I also found the texture a little claggy, but not claggy enough not to enjoy the scone.

The jam that was served with the scone was ok - bog standard strawberry jam!

Finally we made our way to the top tier and the selection of cakes, which were rather appealing to look at because of the different colours...

The cakes were small and there were six different varieties to try, which was nice to see. We had already established that we could have additional cakes if we wanted which was nice to know (nothing worse than having to share the cakes so everyone tries everything!).

This selection wasn't to everyone's taste, and they weren't the most delicate sweets I have tried. But the flavours were at least interesting - there is a dense Brownie in there, a mango cheesecake (with a strong emphasis on the cheese), a red velvet cake, a green tea cake and another piece of brownie which was spiked with raspberry and peach . We liked the addition of peach pipette, which meant you could add as much or little peach as you liked. 

Overall it was a good tea, the service was friendly and the food was all fresh. There was a good selection of teas, which catered for most tastes from black and green to herbal and fruit. The Terrace is also a lovely space to be in - you wouldn't think you were so close to a train station!

The afternoon tea starts at £29.95 for a standard tea, which for central London I think represents a good price. 

For more information pop by the Amba Hotel Charing Cross' website

Have you enjoyed an afternoon tea recently? We'd love to hear all about it, leave us a comment or send us a photo on Twitter!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

New Year ..... New Project .....Introducing Tea With Me Designs

Hello there,

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

As you know we love a spot of afternoon tea here at Tea With Me and Friends Towers and drink rather a lot of tea every week, but did you know we also love a spot of crafting? From sewing and jewellery making to card making and painting, I'll give nearly any craft a go. I also gather my lovely friends together for crafternoon teas, where we enjoy an afternoon tea and then try a craft. 

This year I have decided to combine these two passions and have launched a little Etsy shop called Tea With Me Designs

I am very excited to share this with everyone - my shop sells handmade cards and gifts which are inspired by my love of tea. I make all the items by hand, including a range of cards which feature tea puns.....everyone loves a tea pun! From cards for your "best-tea" to cards declaring a loved ones position in your affections.....after tea!

My little tea people have been created to make you smile and I hope you love them as much as I do.

As the year progresses I hope to expand Tea With Me Designs, but at the moment if you would like to see my tea inspired greetings cards just pop by my Etsy shop!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

What a Tea-riffic Year!

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - sorry it's been such a long time since we last posted! We lost all concept of time in the last couple of months of 2017....but never fear....we're back feeling tea-riffic and looking forward to lots of afternoon tea adventures in 2018!

Looking back over 2017 we enjoyed some wonderful teas - we visited Lancaster London for their clever black and white themed Halloween afternoon tea, where every item was either black or white. It made for such an elegant afternoon tea....

We also enjoyed rather controversial triple-decker, triangular sandwiches at The Balcon at Sofitel St James....which Lorna didn't approve of....

In the summer we visited the rather beautiful Coworth Park to celebrate Alex's Birthday. We enjoyed walking around the grounds of the house and eating the cutest sweet treats (almost too cute to eat!)....

We enjoyed German and Austrian themed afternoon teas at the German Gymnasium in April, which included a rather magnificent Opera cake...

Sheree visited Cannizaro House Hotel in Wimbledon and shared her afternoon tea adventure with us, this tea included a variety of different savoury elements...

We began the year by visiting Jumeirah Carlton Tower, where we enjoyed a champagne afternoon tea which included some beautiful tarts and pastries...

And this is just some of the afternoon teas we've enjoyed! We also drank rather a lot of tea and discovered lots of new tea companies and blends.

Now we're looking forward to 2018 and all the sweet treats that are in store for us. We're looking forward to visiting some of the places we've already discovered and trying some new ones too! If you enjoy an afternoon tea or have a favourite tea blend please get in touch - we'd love to hear all about your afternoon tea adventures too!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Afternoon Tea News - Halloween 2017 part 2

Hello there,

Welcome back to part 2 of the Tea With Me and Friends Halloween themed afternoon tea round up! Yes, today we have more spooky afternoon teas to share with you!

Let's begin with Tewin Bury Farm Hotel in Hertfordshire.....

This afternoon tea is available between 21st- 31st October and guests can enjoy the following sweet treats:

Cauldron mallow pop
Ghoulish white chocolate macaroon
'Dracula's Tomb' raspberry opera
Eerie sorbet filled 'chocolate eye'
Blackcurrant & 'Slime' pannacotta

Yes, you read that correctly.....you could be feasting on a chocolate eye!

The Milestone Hotel in London if offering a very limited Halloween afternoon tea, available on the 30th-31st October 2017.....and beware....it includes more eyeballs!

Sweet treats at this afternoon tea include:

Spooky coconut meringue
Bat praline millefeuille
Eye ball chocolate truffles
Poisonous pistachio cheesecake
R.I.P velvet cupcake

This menu made me giggle, calling the pistachio cheesecake "poisonous" - if I'm honest I'm not the greatest pistachio fan and so this name is very fitting!

Finally we found this super cute Halloween tea on offer at Lottie's Coffee Lounge at the Butterfly House in Sheffield:

And yes....there is another eyeball in this one too - clearly a theme in 2017! This afternoon tea is more rustic than the other teas, but I love the styling! This tea is available all of October from 1st October 2017 to 31st October 2017 between 12PM - 3:30PM.

We hope you've enjoyed part 2 of our Halloween round up. If you've enjoyed a Halloween themed afternoon tea this year we'd love to hear all about it!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna