Other People's Festive Afternoon Teas

Hello there,

You might remember our posts a couple of months ago where we featured photos that our friends on Twitter and Facebook had taken of afternoon teas they had enjoyed.

Well, those posts were so popular that we decided we needed to see what festive afternoon teas people have been enjoying.

Are you sitting comfortable and are you ready to drool? There are some scrummy photos coming up.....

Intercontinental Park Lane's festive afternoon tea

To start us off Claire from The Secret Tea Society enjoyed a 12 days of Christmas afternoon tea at Intercontinental Park Lane. Look at the pastry swan peeking from the top tier!

 

Harriet's Secret Tearoom's pretty festive afternoon tea

Emily and her mum enjoyed a festive afternoon to at Harriet's Secret Tearoom in Melton Mowbray. Read more about their lovely tea on Emily's fab blog!

One Aldwych's scrummy afternoon tea

 Hazel from Cupcake Daisy took some time out from her busy baking schedule to enjoy One Aldwych's festive take on their wonderful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory afternoon tea....complete with gingerbread pops and some surprising candy floss!

 

Crackers with your festive afternoon tea at Tea Total

 April Moores enjoyed a festive tea complete with crackers at Tea Total in Lyndhurst. I like the look of those mini puddings!

 

Bond and Brook offer an elegant festive afternoon tea

 Anomalous London enjoyed an elegant festive afternoon tea at Bond and Brook in Fenwick of Bond Street

Netherdene B&B offer a fab festive afternoon tea

 Netherdene B&B in Cumbria have been serving up their guests this festive treat, complete with scrummy looking mince pies and Christmas cake.

 

Jumeirah Carlton Tower's imaginative festive afternoon tea

 Tazmin from sapphire Event Design recently enjoyed the Eric Lanlard festive afternoon tea served at Jumeirah Carlton Tower hotel in London - I'm still a tad bit jealous of this afternoon tea, it looks so scrummy!

An international afternoon tea served at the Conrad Hotel in Bangkok

 A festive tea slightly further afield was enjoyed by J Lim - this is the afternoon tea currently being served at the Conrad Hotel in Bangkok! That Stollen looks wonderful!

 

A lavish festive afternoon tea feast served by Exquisite Vintage Teas

Finally Exquisite Vintage Teas have been creating these wonderful festive afternoon treats.

 

See....I told you there were some scrummy photos to enjoy! Thank you to everyone who has shared their afternoon tea photos with us, I do love hearing about your tea adventures!

 

I hope you've enjoyed our photos, if you've enjoyed an afternoon tea recently and would like to share your photo with us please get in touch. You can leave a comment here, email us or get in touch on Facebook or Twitter!

 

Finally, we'd like to thank all our fab readers a tea-riffic Christmas - I hope you have a wonderful time.

 

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea....W Hotel London

This weekend Becca, Sheree and I decided to have a festive day in London - first we headed off to Harrods (because we're mad) for a spot of shopping and then onto the W Hotel in Leicester Square to enjoy their festive afternoon tea - Rock Around the Christmas Tea.

W Hotel usually offers guests a W Rock Tea, which is a traditional British afternoon tea with a Rock "n" Roll twist....but since its the festive season they have added a festive twist to their afternoon tea.

W Hotel is a modern, glamorous hotel situated on Leicester Square and the W Hotel Bar and Lounge is very contemporary. The hotel offers just ten teas with their afternoon tea, all appear to be bagged tea and are served in stainless steel teapots and white china teacups.

Modern teapots and china

Also on offer with the afternoon tea is a choice of three Christmas themed cocktails, they are priced at £10 each and Becca and I were both tempted to try one....

 

Festive cocktail anyone?

When the food arrives at our table it looked rather spectacular and was served on a bespoke three tier cake stand. Each tier of the stand was a record to fit in with the rock "n" roll theme....

 

Festive afternoon tea at W Hotel London

The food is well presented and looks very appealing and there is plenty of choice.

 

On the bottom tier there is a selection of savoury items including some controversial triple decker sandwiches! We could enjoy salmon and cream cheese and roast beef sandwiches, or small turkey and cranberry rolls or a veggie wrap. All were generously filled, but I would question how fresh they were as the bread on top of the sandwiches had turned a little hard already.

 

Controversial triple decker afternoon tea sandwiches!

Next we moved onto the scones, which were currant scones served with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Becca is unfortunately allergic to strawberries and when we mentioned this the waitress found some small jars of raspberry and apricot jam as an alternative for her.

 

The scones were the low point of this afternoon tea - they were over baked and not far off being rock cakes. Very disappointing.

 

After attempting (and failing) to eat the scones we quickly moved onto the sweet treats on offer, hoping these would be better......

 

Sweet treats galore!

On the next two layers we were treated to six different sweet treats...some were divine and some were not to our taste, but we definitely weren't disappointed with the amount of choice on offer.

 

The treats included "O Christmas Tree" which was a red velvet sponge topped with cream cheese frosting, "All I Want for Christmas is Choux" which was a choux pastry bun filled with eggnog crème patisserie and "Love This Angel Instead" which was a mascarpone mouse with cherry and chocolate.

 

But my favourite bits were the "Jingle Bell Rocky Road" a wonderful rocky road bite, topped with marshmallow and a candy cane and the "Holly and the Ivy" a very tasty gingerbread holly leaf, filled with a sparkly raspberry jam - I could have eaten loads of those!

My favourite sweet treats in the afternoon tea

The final sweet treat to be served was the "Mistletoe and Wine" which was a mulled wine jelly topped with Chantilly cream. Now I really enjoyed this, but if you're not a fan of mulled wine it will leave a bad taste in your mouth!

 

 

This tea is priced at £25 per person, which I think is reasonable due to the amount of choice on offer. However I am sad to report that despite the assistance with Becca's food allergy, the overall service wasn't up to scratch.

 

Admittedly there were only two waitresses working when we were there but it wasn't particularly busy in the lounge and yet no one came to see if we were happy with our tea or whether we needed anything else. We had to ask for more tea once we'd run out and we were never asked whether we wanted seconds of anything.

 

However, saying that we would give them the benefit of the doubt as we would like to try their normal W Rock Tea, as we enjoyed the concept of the tea and it is great value in terms of choice.

 

To finish our festive day we saw the famous Coca Cola truck that was paying a visit to nearby Covent Garden.....

 

The Holidays Are Coming!

If you've tried this festive offering, or any other festive afternoon tea, we'd love to hear about it - leave us a comment or send us an email!

 

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

 

 





Time for Tea....Jumeira Carlton Tower

Hello there,

Christmas is fast approaching and by spending some time on Twitter and Instagram I can see that lots of people are enjoying festive afternoon teas at the moment. One tea that has caught my eye is the Eric Lanlard Christmas afternoon tea at the Chinoiserie restaurant in the Jumeira Carlton Tower.

To be honest when you are greeted by pictures like this on a restaurant webpage, I think you know the tea is going to look pretty fantastic too.....

Photo from Jumeirah Carlton Tower website

 

So, when I saw this brilliant photo on Instagram I just had to contact the person and see if I could include it on our blog....

 

 

Tazmin from Saphire Event Designs replied to my request and sent me rather a lot of other scrummy photos too, which I just had to share with you.

 

The Chinoiserie is a beautiful restaurant, and Tazmin said you really felt like you were situated in the lap of luxury while enjoying your afternoon tea. I'm pleased to hear that service throughout the afternoon tea is impeccable too.

 

Picture from Jumeirah Carlton Tower website

Currently there is the traditional afternoon tea on offer, but also the festive creation by master patisserie Eric Lanlard. The festive version includes sandwiches filled with seasonal turkey and cranberry, chicken liver and salmon, these are followed by a scones and a whole host of festive sweet treats to enjoy.

 

The tea range is extensive and includes middle eastern teas as well.

 

All dietary requirements can be catered for at this restaurant.

 

Here are some more of Tazmin's photo's.....get ready to drool.....

 

Festive afternoon tea

 

 

 

Flavours found within this afternoon tea include creamy eggnog, mulled wine and chestnuts - a full on festive experience!

 

This festive afternoon tea costs £40 per person, if you'd like to add a glass of bubbles to your tea it will be £50 per person.

 

I have to say I think this tea looks amazing and I am a little bit jealous that I haven't tried it myself. A big thank you to Tazmin for sharing these with me.

 

If you've enjoyed a festive afternoon tea, or are hosting one at home we'd love to hear about it. Please leave us a comment or send us an email!

 

Thank you for popping by today and we hope to see you again soon!

Rachel & Lorna

 

Time for Tea....The Petersham

Hello there, I hope you are keeping well.

I think this post should be renamed to "Look who came to afternoon tea!"....but keeping with tradition I went with the hotel name instead! Last weekend I met up with the wonderful Secret Tea Society ladies for our Christmas afternoon tea at The Petersham hotel in Richmond.

Now the lovely Claire organised this tea for us and she certainly delivered a wonderful afternoon! We had a poetry reading, lots of lovely gifts, a good natter......and look who else made an appearance....

Father Christmas popped by during afternoon tea!

Now if you've ever read my craft blog you'll know that I am a big kid at heart and I love Christmas time! I love everything about it, so the fact that it snowed and Santa popped along really made this afternoon tea special!

Once we were all seated and had picked our teas from the menu, our afternoon tea stand was brought out.....

The festive cake stand

We had finger sandwiches, warm scones and a lovely selection of festive cakes to pick from as we nattered away!

There was a nice selection of teas on offer, including traditional English, Earl Grey, Assam, Darjeeling and a Christmas Blend. I of course opted for the Christmas blend which was a rich black tea full of spicy Christmas flavours - really scrummy!

Traditional afternoon tea sandwiches

 The sandwiches were cut into traditional fingers and were all very fresh and scrummy. There was a good selection of fillings too, including turkey and cranberry sauce, smoked applewood cheese with apple cider chutney, salmon and cream cheese and cucumber.

Next we moved to the top tier of the stand to the scones which were cranberry and lemon. The scones were light and flavoursome. My one comment is that they were served warm, but weren't wrapped in a napkin to keep the warmth....by the time we got to them they had gone cold again. The scones were served with a pot of clotted cream and we each had our own pot of jam....so no arguing over jam!

Finally we got to the sweet selection and if I am honest this is where I felt the tea was let down a bit. There was a lot of choice on the plate - all very festive.....but I didn't think the presentation was that appealing and to be honest I was a little disappointed with the quality of the sweet items I tried.

The pastries on offer included a yule log roulade, Christmas spice financiers, red fruit and pistachio choux buns, linzer biscuits, gingerbread macaroons and traditional stolen - a lovely selection.

But the Stollen I had was unfortunately rather dry and the financier was a little claggy (although the flavour was wonderful). I was reliably told that the Yule log roulade was wonderful though.

This festive tea cost £25.00 each, if you want a glass of bubbles you need to add another £12.50. The price was reasonable, although we weren't offered any seconds. Saying that we didn't all finish the cakes we had and the hotel happily boxed up the extra items for us to take home.

All in all I had a wonderful afternoon is beautiful settings. The Secret Tea Society is a lovely group to belong to, if you are interested in joining us please take a peek at the website!

Thanks for popping by today, we hope to see you again very soon for some more afternoon tea adventures!

Rachel

Themed afternoon teas

Hello there!

Recently we posted an article on Tea With Me and Friends about themed afternoon teas and what Lorna and I generally thought of them - as we discussed as long as the style and substance is equally balanced then we are quite happy with a themed afternoon tea. After all.... we have hosted several themed teas ourselves!

A Halloween themed afternoon tea created by Lorna and I

Currently on our blog poll, everyone who has voted has said that they enjoy themed afternoon teas too and feedback on our Facebook page has been positive too! So we thought we would take a peek at some of the lovely Christmas themed afternoon teas that you could be enjoying in the next couple of months.

There are so many different Christmas themed afternoon teas on offer this year....here are just a selection of some of the ones that have been making us drool....

A festive treat at the Intercontinental Westminster

 

The Twelve Days of Christmas afternoon tea at The Intercontinental Park Lane

 

The Corinthia is offering this pretty tea - isn't that snowman cute?

 

I love the cute little gingerbread houses on offer at The Langham

 

 

 

Fancy a little mulled wine with your afternoon tea? Rubens at the Palace might have just the afternoon tea for you!

 

 

Chris Golding also sent me a sneak preview of the festive afternoon tea on offer at The Ampersand this year...

 

 

 I don't know about you....I'm feeling more than a little festive now (and I'm drooling a little!). If you enjoy a festive afternoon tea this year we'd love to hear from you - leave a message for us here or visit us on Twitter or Facebook.

 

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna