“We’re not getting any more scones and clotted cream. Our vacation is less than three months away and we need to build anticipation for the trip.” 

Famous last words from my dad. Unsurprisingly, we caved and got more scones and cream about a month before we left. Perhaps that’s why we only managed to visit three tea houses on this trip, but you know what? They were great places.

London: Camellia’s Tea House

The first place we visited was Camellia’s Tea House, just opposite the British Museum. This was not our first choice, but after struggling against the crowd in the museum (“mummies are cool” – everyone in the British Museum), we needed some tea and a sit down.

Camellia’s Tea House is a charming place, with friendly staff and an extensive tea menu. When we were about to be seated, they warned us that they were understaffed today and that it might take a while for us to be served but everything came pretty quickly.

When we’re tired, we have a standard order: a simple cream tea.

For my tea, I chose a white tea: Camellia’s Tea House Welcome Tea. It’s won a Great Taste Award, which was what intrigued me. The description of the tea is as follows:

“A delectable and refreshing white tea infusion reminiscent of summer orchards”.

The tea had a fruity smell and a pretty light liquor. After being introduced to the amazing range of flavours in single origin teas, I’ve become more sensitive to artificial flavourings but everything here tasted natural (and naturally fruity). It was a great tea and I was going to grab some but they ran out in the shop. I was pretty pleased with my tea, which is more than I could say for my dad – he ordered a happiness tisane and then realised that if he didn’t like tisanes in Singapore, he wasn’t going to like them in the UK either.

The scones were pretty good; they were dense and crumbly and served with jam and clotted cream (many places in Singapore don’t serve scones with clotted cream which is why we were so excited to have clotted cream on our trip). The scones were a bit dry, but that wasn’t a concern since we washed it down with tea.

The tea and scones revived us enough that we had enough energy to take silly pictures by the end of tea:

This isn’t related to the tea, but my favourite area of Camellia’s Tea House was their tea cup wall clock.

Edinburgh: Eteaket

Eteaket was recommended to me by a friend who went to Edinburgh University for her undergraduate studies. She actually recommended quite a few places to me but with only two days, we didn’t have enough time to visit more than one. Luckily for us, Eteaket was near the apartment we were staying in, and so we headed over for tea as soon as we finished checking in.

Sadly, Eteaket was out of scones by the time we arrived. But the place was so bright and welcoming that we decided to just sit down and have a slice of cake instead – in Singapore, afternoon tea is normally served sans scones so a tea and cake combination sounded like home to us.

I decided to try their Strawberries and Cream tea, which is described as being

“As quintessentially British as Cliff Richard singing at a water-logged Wimbledon. This fruit infusion is built on apple pieces, hibiscus blossoms, elderberries, rose hip peel, pineapple & strawberry pieces. “

This tisane smelled like cream but tasted like berries. The tea liquor was a pretty ruby red and tasted like berries. It was a nice complement to the Triple Chocolate cake which was so rich and so good. I think that cake made my day.

My sister, on the other hand, decided that she deserved a G&T after the train ride. She had the Earl Grey Gin and Tonic and I (naturally) stole a few sips from her. I thought that the taste of the gin was subtle and the bergamot natural, but she felt that the taste of the gin was too weak.

If I were ever to go back to Edinburgh, I’d want to come back and try more of Eteaket’s cakes and tea.

York: Bettys

I was in York when a friend texted “Try Bettys, I think you’d like it.”

Said friend never actually made it in (the queue was apparently too long) but he knew that I liked tea and scones and had a gut feeling that it was up my alley. Well, we almost didn’t make it either – the queue for lunch was insane and we skipped it in favour of some Yorkshire pudding. But, the queue had shortened considerably by dinner and I managed to persuade my family to go to Bettys for dinner.

Most of my family ordered regular dinner food but my mom and I got their teas. I had the cream tea and my mom had the afternoon tea – a good decision because we barely managed to finish the two sets between us.

The scones here were the best we had on the trip – they were dense and buttery and the raisins were plump. They were served with plenty of jam and clotted cream, which made me happy. I could have eaten these alone, but they came with their Tea Room blend tea. The Tea Room Blend tea was smooth and malty with a great astringency and aftertaste – it was almost minty. It was probably the best tea that I had on the trip but I found out that you have to drink this hot. Once the tea cools down, it gets slightly bitter and the astringency and aftertaste goes away as well. This is definitely a tea that is best served hot.

I was a bit too full for the sandwiches, but the cakes in the afternoon tea were all fantastic. I had the chocolate mousse cake and the lemon macaron tart and they were both very rich and flavourful. The regular dinner dishes were good as well (or so I was told) so I’d say that my friend’s recommendation was on point.

We’ve been back for about two weeks and so far, I haven’t had cravings for scones yet. I guess the afternoon teas we had in the UK left me satiated. I am, however, getting the urge to bake but that will have to wait until the craziness that is STF is over.