This afternoon tea has been on my mind for at least two years. I know because I found a text message from 2015 (or so) asking a friend to accompany me there. Well, I always thought that it was too expensive for a student, but during my last few days in Fukuoka, I decided to just go for it since I have no idea when I’ll be back.
About Fortnum and Mason
There are four Fortnum and Mason teashops in Japan — one in Nihonbashi, one in Tamagawa, one in Hiroshima and one in Fukuoka[1]. So I was pretty lucky to be living so close to a teashop for so long.
Anyway, I wanted to come here because the picture of the afternoon looked really pretty. But then I heard a friend mention it, looked it up on Wikipedia and then realised that it’s pretty upmarket. It’s actually a department store and the tea room is just a part of it (I actually thought that it specialised in tea). Fortnum and Mason also holds two royal warrants[2]; one is to Her Majesty the Queen as a “grocers and provisions merchants” and one to His Royal Highness the Princess of Wales as one of the “tea merchants and grocers”.
I also read that they invented the scotch egg and they have a tea subscription and now I really, really, want a tea subscription! But it costs £45 for 3 months which is really expensive [3].
The Afternoon Tea
The tea shop is pretty small, but we managed to get a seat right away. They sell tea and cake sets, or you can be like me and order the three-tiered afternoon tea set.
The tables are pretty small, so there wasn’t much room to move after everything arrived. Looks-wise, this was pretty but not as impressive as the Ritz Carlton’s afternoon tea (shallow, but that was one of my thoughts).
The tea I chose was the Queen Anne tea, which was created in 1907 for their 200th anniversary. It was pretty nice and I thought that it went really well with the food. I’d definitely want to try more tea from Fortnum and Mason in the future.
The sandwiches were cucumber (of course), beef, and salmon. My favourite was the salmon and I even liked the cucumber one, which was a surprise because I’m not really a fan of cucumber. Perhaps afternoon tea will turn me into a cucumber fan?
The next layer were the scones, which were far better than the Ritz Carlton ones! They make the Lupicia scones taste so dry in comparison. If I’m in Fukuoka (or England) and my budget isn’t big enough for an afternoon tea here, I’d want a cream tea.
The scones were plain and tea flavoured and both were really good.
I got to choose two cakes and I got the strawberry sandwich cake with white chocolate cream and the earl grey roll cake. They actually brought all the cakes out on a tray for us to pick what we liked, which I thought was pretty cool. I liked the earl grey cake better, mostly because of the tea, but the strawberry cake was good too! I would have preferred it if they used cream instead of white chocolate cream though.
And I’m very sorry for the blueish tint in all the pictures. They were far too warm when they I first saw them but clearly, I over-corrected this.
Details about the tea
Price: 2520 yen for one, 5040 yen for two.
Location: Fukuoka Mitsukoshi (in Tenjin) B2.
References & Notes
Fortnum and Mason Japan
Wikipedia entry for Fortnum and Mason
Royal Warrant Information
Fortnum and Mason tea subscription
Queen Anne Tea
[1] Their afternoon tea section is about the origins of afternoon tea. According to them, it started in the early 1800s when Anna Maria, the Duchess of Bedford started having tea and sweets in the afternoon to curb her hunger pangs since people only had two meals during that time.
[2] I think? I’m just counting what I saw on the website but I have no idea if you count all warrants as one or something.
[3] Although the fact that they have a worldwide subscription is really tempting. This also led me into a rabbit hole of tea subscriptions and now this list is tempting me.