I’ve only heard of afternoon tea through tv shows and hours of Great British Bake Off. Really wanted the opportunity to go all out and have some of the best scones, pastries, and tea London could offer. I had made reservations to the Palm Court at the Langham hotel which claims they made afternoon tea mainstream in 1865.
We were seated right on time and I was couldn’t help but take in the elegant atmosphere of the room. Everything was shiny and bright, there was a live piano player, and for an afternoon we were taking part in traditional British culture. Magda was our server from Poland. She was very nice and accommodating especially knowing that this was our first time doing afternoon tea. There was a list of 17 different kinds of tea to choose from and she explained the order of the food that was to be served.
She also asked if we were celebrating anything special. We told her it’s our first time in Europe and we’ve been married 3 years, together 16. Right away she brought over 2 glasses of champagne for the occasion which made things even fancier.
While the tea selection was vast, I was told we could switch it up throughout the meal. I ordered the Assam black tea while Joanna went with the white peony silver needle tea. Both teas were very fragrant and flavorful. Soon after Magda brought us each a plate of sandwiches. She said that they are unlimited but please don’t get too full because there’s more food coming. I noticed a funny looking fork on the table and asked why it was shaped that way. She explained that it’s a pastry fork and you use the side like a knife to cut into desserts. Neat!
Order of the sandwiches top to bottom:
Cornish egg, black truffle, on pan de mie
Scottish smoked salmon, sour cream, and dill on tomato bread
Pastrami and sauerkraut on caraway bread
Cucumber, cream cheese, and chive on white bread
My favorite were the smoked salmon and pastrami. Cucumber was good and felt like the most traditional sandwich with afternoon tea. I didn’t realize there was truffle in the egg sandwich until later but it was still good, just tasted like an egg salad sandwich.
Even though Magda issued us a warning about eating too many sandwiches, she still brought us another helping of them and I couldn’t help but have some more.
Next course were cheese scones with plum chutney and Cotherstone cheese(?). The biscuit was really light and buttery, almost like a southern biscuit but more airy and the cheese had a medium texture like biting into a wedge of cheddar but kinda tasted like a not smoky gouda. I don’t know cheeses so you’ll just have to believe my terrible descriptions.
Since we were getting sweets next we swapped to lighter, slightly more bitter teas. I got a roasted green tea and rice genmaicha from Japan (my favorite) and Joanna got a Jasmine tea which was 10x more fragrant than what we get at dim sum at home so you can tell how high quality it was.
The main event were the delicate pastries that were themed around childhood treats. I’ll post the official descriptions from the menu but I can describe what they tasted like:
Red one: Fruity and crunchy exterior dipped in fizzy soda powder
Yellow one: Chocolate exterior, vanilla cream underneath, and a nilla wafer bottom
White square one: jiggly on the outside because of the marshmallow, fruity blended pear in the middle
White one: Most surprising one when I bit into it as it was very very cold which I didn’t expect. Creamy coconut exterior, tart lime jelly in the middle.
By this time we were getting full as we were an hour in but Magda reminded us that this was a marathon and surprised us with a white chocolate mousse cake with mango and passion fruit filling with pieces of gold leaf on top. Ugh so good…
Thankfully the clothes we were wearing had a slight elastic in the waistband. The last course that was brought out were the raisin and powdered sugar scones, with raspberry and fig jam, and clotted cream. In my head I’m like “yah yah I’ve had scones at home before”. I was wrong because those were S-CONES while these were SCAWNS and they were way better than the bricks of dough we had at home. Not only were they more pillowy and light, they were served with clotted cream which I’ve never had before. Guys, clotted cream is so freaking delicious. It’s like unsalted butter that’s double its creaminess, more milky, and way more fatty.
The whole two hour experience was really wonderful. The food was great, the service was fantastic, and we definitely would do something similar again. There are places you can do afternoon tea for half the cost and still be fancy schmancy.
I know in the title I said this was the most posh cup of tea I’ve ever had. I lied because I had 7 cups and a glass of champagne…also half of Joanna’s glass of champagne.
Due to the enormous amount of liquid we ingested, several trips to the bathroom were necessary. In the basement of the hotel I found this really cool photography book from Annie Leibovitz, a photographer I’ve never heard of but have definitely seen her work.
There was a small sign below the book that said
I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the page that I randomly flipped to
THIS is art at its finest
Andrew – Your blogging is amazing! What a great way to remember all these wonderful memories for the rest of your life. I makes me feel like I’m there and it’s so great to hear all your descriptions and see all your pictures. I look forward to reading all your blogs. Thanks for sharing your trip. Kristin
Kristin, I’m so happy you’re enjoying my ramblings! Sometimes when I feel nostalgic I’ll look back on past entries and see what I was up to the same day several years ago. It’s really nice to keep people in the loop because when you come back from a trip, you tend to sound like a broken record answering the same questions. Also it’s handy when you have friends interested in going to the same places to use the blog as a reference for recommendations 🙂