Afternoon Tea at Laura Kate, Welwyn .... vintage deliciousness.

My friends and I just came home from a lovely afternoon tea in the village of Welwyn. I have been to quite a few afternoon teas over the past year and have written about them on my blog - The Conrad St James, The Milestone, The Ampersand  all lovely posh places in London. Today I thought I would try a rural tea in leafy Hertfordshire.

We chose Laura Kate in Welwyn. It is a tiny Tea Parlour set on the High Street, seating about 16 people. We thought it would be interesting to see the sort of tea available, especially as the Laura Kate tea costs £14.95 - half of the cost of most London teas.

We arrived to friendly smiles and were shown to our table. The shop is pretty, mainly white with fresh pink roses and displays of their delicious cakes - all made on the premises by the team.

Our waitress took our orders for tea. My friends had English Breakfast Tea while I ordered Peppermint Tea. They both arrived in pots, loose leaf tea, which, during the course of the afternoon, were refreshed frequently. Delicious! There was a good tea menu, offering the teas we had alongside Assam, Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Chamomile and more.

Our tea stand arrived and the contents were explained to us. We had previously been asked whether we would like to choose the flavour of our cupcakes or be given a surprise. Being quite courageous types we went for the surprise option!

I loved the quirky tea stand - made of stiff cardboard and so pretty! When we booked (booking is essential) we were asked about our dietary requirements and they took note of my friend being a vegetarian. Everything is served on quirky vintage plates with funky cups and saucers too.

We began with the sandwiches ...

Beef with horseradish, egg mayonnaise, cucumber & cream cheese, brie & cranberry.

They were all delicious, on soft, soft fresh bread, but I think my favourite was the beef ... or possibly the egg ...!!

Next we moved onto the freshly baked, warm scones. It is a fact universally acknowledged that scones should always be served warm from the oven, and I was very pleased to see that these were!

There were two scones each, served with lashings of clotted cream and raspberry jam. The waiting staff were incredibly attentive and friendly without being intrusive. We were asked if we needed more jam or cream and although there was enough of both we were feeling rather greedy and asked for even more.

By the time we had eaten our scones we were starting to feel a tad ... well, to put it bluntly ... stuffed!

And yet we still had the top layer to go ...

Banoffee shots

Millionaires shortbread bites...

 Raspberry white chocolate, chocolate, vanilla cupcakes.

I have to admit that we simply could not finish our cupcakes, but the lady serving us noticed this and offered to wrap them for us so we could take them home. They were brought back to us wrapped in cellophane and ribbon. How lovely!

We spent our afternoon laughing and chatting, totally relaxed and having fun. The afternoon tea at Laura Kate is absolutely delicious! All the cakes are baked on the premises and everything we had to eat and drink was beautifully presented, wonderfully fresh and scrumptious!! I have to say that the tea was one of my favourites, coming in second after the Conrad's Festive Tea. Everything from the welcome to the service and, of course, the food was really super. I highly recommend, if you are in Hertfordshire, that you make a booking for tea, or just pop in for a cuppa and a crumpet ( Marmite provided!) or a homemade cupcake. 

And, just in case you are wondering ... we paid full price of £14.95 for our tea and were most happy to do so!

London Bloggers Afternoon Tea at the Milestone Hotel

I have been very lucky, over the last few months, to be one of a group of bloggers who get together for afternoon tea in some of the most lovely hotels in London. Today it was the turn of the Milestone Hotel - a 5 star boutique hotel in Kensington. I prepared myself for a sumptuous tea and headed off on the train ...

Walking into the luxurious surroundings of the Milestone I was greeted with smiles and friendly staff who directed me to our private room - The Windsor. I knew that I had come to the right place because of the hubbub of blogger voices and friendly laughter! Although a tad hot and flustered from my journey I soon relaxed when met by the smiling face of Selena from Oh, the places we will go! and of course the chilled champagne helped too!

We were looked after by a couple of very helpful staff who came round offering us either Earl Grey or English Breakfast Tea. I chose the English Breakfast, but it would have been nice to have rather more of a choice and I prefer to have my own pot rather than be served. At other places we have had a choice of all sorts - Assam, Darjeeling, Chamomile, Peppermint and so on, but the tea was hot and wet so that's fine. I'm sure if I'd asked for something else it would have been available.

I had tried to download the Afternoon Tea menu from the hotel website, but had been unable to do so, so I was excited to see what delights would be on offer. There was no menu on the table, but when asked the waiter told us about the sandwiches and cakes on offer.

The tea was very traditional. On our three tier stand were crustless finger sandwiches with various fillings - smoked salmon and cream cheese, egg and cress (delicious!), cheese and tomato and ham and mustard. They were very tasty, but if I'm honest nothing to really write home about. The bread, in places, had the very slight dryness about it that told me it wasn't absolutely fresh. I also prefer my ham cut from a joint as you can see in the ham gougere from a visit to a different place - rather than "plastic ham" found in the sandwiches today. This really disappointed me. I certainly wouldn't buy ham like that and I was surprised to find it at the Milestone.

The Milestone ham sandwich

Ham gougere from ... another hotel. 

Next we began the homemade scones with jam and clotted cream. They were warm, which is lovely, and quite crispy on the outside. I'm not sure if the hotel quite realised how much we bloggers like our jam and cream as we ran out a couple of times and had to ask for more. Even then I felt a bit cheated. 

The cakes on the top tier looked gorgeous - pretty and dainty.

Our favourites were the lemon meringue mille feuilles and the cheesecake with mango. I couldn't resist the pink macaroon with vanilla filling either!

Sadly the chef did not come out to meet us, which was a shame. It has always been a real highlight to meet the team who have worked to create the food and some chefs continue to tweet our little team as we do our best to sample every tea in town!! Its a good idea to meet us because we are writing about their service and any info they can give to impress us is great, after all we are potentially giving a hotel free publicity!!

 I wandered off for a nosy at one point and saw the main hotel tea rooms which looked gorgeous. It would have been lovely to sit in such beautiful surroundings, but the Windsor was very smart and comfortable and we did need a private room for our group.

All in all I left the hotel having had a nice time. It was good to see the girls again and the tea was pretty good. But it wasn't great and it certainly wasn't outstanding. I hate to give negative reviews, but I like to be honest and although I received a discounted rate I still paid £30 for my tea. I think that if I had paid over £40 which is what they usually charge I would have been very disappointed. The tea lacked imagination, fell down on quality in places and the service was good, but not excellent. One shouldn't have to ask for more milk, more jam, more cream (and I am not a greedy person, let me point out) and there should be a menu available so you can see what's on offer. I still can't open the  one on the hotel website.

I would rate this Afternoon Tea at 6/10.