Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends, and this time we are sharing with you a recent visit to Marwell Hotel in Hampshire.
Marwell Hotel has recently gained the talents of executive chef Phil Yeoman who is passionate about using local produce in all his cooking, and this includes the afternoon tea on offer. Lorna and I were lucky enough to be invited to try Phil's current afternoon tea, here's what we enjoyed.....
We were seated in the upstairs of the lounge area and were looked after very well by Holly. Holly not only offered great, friendly service but also a very good knowledge of the afternoon tea she was serving. After we had picked our tea selection from the Twinings teas on offer, the tea stands were brought out.....
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| Afternoon tea - Marwell Hotel |
On the top tier was a selection of afternoon tea cakes and pastries, and nestled below them on the middle tier were the finger sandwiches. The scones were brought out after we had finished our sandwiches, which meant they were served perfectly warm.
The hotel supports local producers and this is reflected in all the food served at afternoon tea.
The sandwiches were freshly cut and generously filled....
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| Afternoon tea sandwiches - Marwell Hotel |
The filling variety included:
Smoked salmon and cream cheese
Cream cheese and cucumber
Honey roast ham, and grain mustard
The bread was fresh and I'm pleased to report crustless. The sandwiches were a good size, cut into fingers and filled from end to end - there was no scrimping here! I really enjoyed the cucumber sandwiches.
Once we had finished the sandwiches the plates of scones were brought out.....
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| Afternoon tea scones - Marwell Hotel |
Now...these scones were quite amazing....firstly...they were huge! We were served one plain and one fruit scone each, accompanied by locally produced strawberry jam and clotted cream. As mentioned before, as the scones were brought out after we'd finished our sandwiches they were lovely and warm when we cut into them.
The fruit scones had fruit all the way through, and both the fruit and plain ones had a lovely flavour and texture to them. They had a nice bite, were light inside and not at all claggy. I really liked the strawberry jam, which was a good consistency (perfectly for dolloping on top of the cream!) and flavoursome.
Finally we moved onto the top tier of the cake stand....those wonderful looking pastries and cakes.....
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| Afternoon tea pastries - Marwell Hotel |
There were three different sweets to enjoy:
Chocolate marquise salted caramel
Glazed strawberry tartlet chantilly cream
Carrot cake coriander cress
I started with the carrot cake, which was light and delicious. I'm not normally a fan of carrot cake, but this I really enjoyed. I followed this up with the strawberry tartlet, which again was light and delicate...and those strawberries tasted amazing! Finally I enjoyed the salted caramel and chocolate piece of heaven, which was topped with homemade honeycomb. It was rich, but light and I loved the salted caramel running through it.
This was a really lovely selection of sweets, and all were a good size.
All in all this was a wonderful afternoon tea, we were well fed and watered and all for £15.50 per person. If you are in Hampshire I would definitely recommend trying this afternoon tea - it's great value, especially considering the quality of the ingredients.
We also had the pleasure of meeting executive chef Phil at the end of our experience who told us about some of his plans for the hotel (we also asked him our afternoon tea questions). We'll feature all this in a future blog post, so watch this space!
I'd like to thank Marwell Hotel and Phil for inviting us to try their afternoon tea. Please note that although we were guests at the hotel, this has not influenced our thoughts on the tea and all opinions expressed are our own.
If you would like to find out more about the afternoon tea, please visit the Marwell Hotel website.
Thank you for popping by today,
Rachel
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