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