Holiday Tea #2 - Butchart Gardens

My second holiday tea was with my friend Charlene at the world-famous Butchart Gardens, and you can read more specific info about afternoon tea here. We went on a cold, wet afternoon so it was lovely to step inside the Dining Room of the Butchart family's former residence and enjoy some tea and treats. Our table was in the far corner of the former conservatory, so we had a great view from the windows, and even had a bust of a Roman emperor on the ledge behind Charlene (shades of my upcoming trip to Italy??).

The table setup was clean and classic - white and silver, you can't go wrong with that.

 

I love being presented with the menu, and this one was so big I had to take two photos to capture all of the info on it:

 

For my tea, I chose the Teaberry Blend, and I ended up liking it so much that I bought a 50g bag of it in the gift shop! It's just the right mix of Ceylon tea (my favourite type of black tea) and fruits (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and currants) without the fruits being overpowering.

 

Once we had our tea, we didn't have to wait long before our server brought out our starter, the cranberry trifle. I was pretty much speechless after my first bite, it was SO GOOD!! I think we both oooh'd and ahhh'd over it and savoured every bite.

After enjoying the trifle we were then presented with the main tea tray - very impressive!

Again, we started with the savouries on the bottom. Charlene and I both hate egg salad, so we were able to substitute smoked salmon sandwiches for the egg salad (yay!). What we have on this savoury tier are:

• Cowichan Valley chicken salad, fig walnut chutney
• Albacore tuna salad, celery, and tarragon aioli
• Smoked salmon, caper cream cheese, red onion marmalade
• Sausage roll, green tomato relish, German mustard
• Smoked salmon and scallion quiche
• Glazed heritage ham, Okanagan apple chutney

That is a big assortment of savouries! I didn't think that I would have room for anything else after eating all of that, but somehow I managed. If I had to pick a favourite, I would choose the sausage roll, and the smoked salmon pinwheel a close second. The sandwiches all had a comforting, homey quality to them, which was nice to experience in a rather "fancy" environment.

Next up was the top tier and the signature house scone, with cinnamon berry preserve and Devon-style cream. The cinnamon gave a nice little kick to the preserve and the Devon-style cream was soooo good (I truly feel bad for people who can't consume dairy).

And to top it all off, the middle tier of treats!

 What we have here: 

• Chocolate Baileys Irish Cream truffle (in the cute little boxes)
• eggnog Napoleon
• peppermint chocolate meringue
• ginger spice loaf
• shortbread cookie

By this point, I was feeling pretty full...I started with the shortbread and thoroughly enjoyed its buttery goodness (it's hard to go wrong with shortbread). Next was the ginger spice loaf, which was also excellent (I love gingerbread/ginger loaf/ginger cookies). The eggnog Napoleon was also good, but really sweet...I've severely cut back on my sugar/sweet consumption in the last few years, so now I reach my "bursting point" with sweets fairly quickly. I think I finished it, but I may have left a bite or two on my plate. The peppermint chocolate meringue pushed me over the edge of sweetness, and I only took one bite of that. I've never been a fan of meringues or macarons because all I can taste is "sweet" not any actual flavours, but someone with a true sweet tooth would have been very impressed with all of this.

I have to include this photo just to show off the cute little truffle box! I took mine home with me and ended up giving it to my dad when I went to my parents' house later that night.

All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon tea with a scenic walk around the gardens afterward!

Holiday Tea #1 - Abkhazi Garden

This past holiday season I went for a total of THREE Christmas-themed afternoon teas. The first of these was with my friend Ina at the Abkhazi Garden, in the Rockland area of Victoria. There's a very interesting story behind the Abkhazi Garden, featuring a prince(!), which you can read about here. I've been here once before for the afternoon tea and it was lovely, but this Christmas tea was a little "extra" than the regular tea.

Note: "afternoon tea" and "high tea" are NOT the same thing. "Afternoon tea" is the fancy tea we think about the Queen sitting down to, with little cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, delicate shortbread, cakes and other sweets. "High tea", on the other hand, is/was a working class meal served at the end of the work day, basically a working class family meal (what I would refer to as 'dinner' or 'supper' here in Canada). When I go out for "tea" I am going out for the fancy genteel "afternoon tea" a la Downton Abbey.

For me, presentation is everything. Ina and I were seated at a table for two in the front window, which allowed us to look out over the garden below. The tables for tea are laid out in what used to be the living room of the house, complete with bay window, fireplace, and lots of natural light.

Crisp white tablecloth and bone china

 What I love about afternoon tea is getting a menu of what I'll be eating. I can't possibly remember all the wonderful things that the server tells me, so having a menu handy is good for reference.

Look at that menu!

We started with the hot honey-buttered crumpets with housemade lemon marmalade...yummy! I love crumpets, and I love anything lemon, so this was a delight. I would have been happy with just a plate of those crumpets!

Ina and I each chose different teas (Silk Road), but for the life of me I can't remember now what they were (my guess is that we both chose black teas, Earl Grey for one of us). Then our server came out with the 3-tiered tea tray and we were blown away...

I like to start with the savouries, always found on the bottom tier. On this plate we had:

• petite tourtiere
• roasted turkey and cranberry croissant
• cucumber and cream cheese on whole wheat
• free range organic egg salad on rye (I let Ina have mine because I hate egg salad)
• smoked salmon profiterole with caramelized shallot cream and dill

This plate was so, so good! If I had to choose a favourite, it would be the tourtiere, followed closely by the smoked salmon profiterole.

The middle tier was next, the scone tier (quite possibly my favourite tier), and on this plate we had:

• freshly baked currant & cranberry scones with Devonshire cream and housemade preserves
• freshly baked cheddar scones with crisp apple slice

Now...I love scones no matter what, but when you have Devonshire cream to put on them...they blow everything else out of the water (not that I put it on my cheese scone, though, that would just be weird). There really is nothing better than a good cup of tea, a scone warm from the oven, and some Devonshire cream and strawberry preserves. Heavenly!

And finally for the top tier...the TREATS!

Eat your heart out, this was AMAZING!!

Now...Ina and I were careful to pace ourselves throughout the savouries and scones so that we would have room for all of THIS loveliness:

• mincemeat tarts
• dark brandied Christmas cake
• Granny's butter shortbread
• sugarplums
• Melchior's chocolate treasure

Let's break this down...mincemeat tarts? Love them! One of my favourite things to eat at Christmas, and this one was great. Dark brandied Christmas cake? I love Christmas cake, but this one was SO boozy I actually coughed/spluttered on my first bite because all I could taste was the brandy. I wasn't sure if I would finish it, but I did. Granny's butter shortbread? I loooooove shortbread, and this was delicious. Sugarplums? I had never had a sugarplum in my life before I tried this one, so I didn't know what to expect. It wasn't that much to my liking, so I had one bite and left the rest of it on my plate. Melchior's chocolate treasure? Yes, that is 24k gold leaf on the chocolate!!!! Let's have a closer look:

It was DIVINE!!!!! So chocolatey, so smooth, I loved it!!!! If I could eat that every day, I'd be about 800 pounds, but I would also be so happy!

This was a GREAT afternoon tea, and I highly recommend going to Abkhazi Garden to try it out. Keep an eye on their website to see when their special/holiday afternoon teas are coming up, and also go for a regular tea, you won't be disappointed!