When I went to England last year, one of the things I wanted to do was to have tea there. Tea as in the meal, not just the drink. And what better time to have tea than with a friend? Michelle is one of my oldest friends and a huge afternoon tea fan, so I knew I was in good hands.

We met at Yumchaa in Soho and since we were pretty full, I decided to have the cream tea[1]:

To my horror, I’ve realised that I can’t remember any details about the scone. The only thing  Ido remember is that I like it and that the clotted cream was really good (this trip to England has turned me into a fan of clotted cream). I’m going to take this as an excuse to visit Yumchaa again on my next trip to England [2].

And the tea! I really like this type of tea/teapot set.

Since it was nighttime/dark/actually I was just sleepy, I decided to get the strawberry and kiwi tea and it was delicious! My mom got one of the mint teas but according to her, it wasn’t as good (and she is a huge huge huge fan of mint tea). This tea is more than its name and has strawberry, kiwi, apple, hibiscus, lemon, and orange [3].

Michelle also got me this Blueberry Hill tea [4], which is one of her favourite teas and something that I’ve been enjoying at home (until the past week or so).

This tea consists of Keemun black tea, blueberries, rhubarb, peony flowers, vanilla and as you can imagine from the ingredients list, it smells fantastic. It has a wonderful, rich fruity scent and all the ingredients blend well together to form a bright, light tea. There isn’t a dominant flavour [5] which means that to me, this is a great tea to pair with rich desserts. It’s good if you don’t want a plain tea but don’t want something overly complex in terms of taste either.

It’s a pity that I’m currently very far from a Yumchaa shop, but at least I have this packet of tea to see me through!

Notes
[1] Cream tea is basically a meal consisting of tea (duh), scones, cream and jam. It’s not to be mistaken for afternoon tea, which is more substantial. For more information, you could read this piece at The Guardian.

[2] That said, there are a lot of places I want to go for tea. I’ve just realised that I didn’t have as much cream tea/afternoon teas as I wanted, although I definitely drank a lot of tea.

[3] Yumchaa’s Strawberry & Kiwi Sorbet page

[4] Yumchaa’s Blueberry Hill page

[5] I wrote this and realised that it might not sound like praise so to clarify: while I like a tea with one dominant tastes and other, more subtle, flavours coming through later, I also like a well-balanced tea.