High Tea at the Hotel Windsor

Hello again!

Today, two lovely friends took my sister and I out for afternoon tea at the Hotel Windsor on Spring Street as a belated birthday treat (our birthday was almost three months ago, but it was impossible to find a weekday afternoon when everyone was free).

The Hotel Windsor - High Tea

It was a delightful experience (I feel like I have to use posh words to describe it, haha!); the hotel itself is amazing and the afternoon tea was fantastic as well!  Normally, they use a different room (according to the waiter), but today, the tea was served in the Grand Ballroom which is just beautiful!

The Hotel Windsor - inside the Grand Ballroom

We began the afternoon with a glass of bubbles and some macarons (pistachio and choc-hazlenut) while we waited for the rest of the food to be served.

Macarons: Pistachio & Choc-Hazlenut

We started out with finger snadwiches.  I was really impressed with the sandwiches we had - three out the four of us are vegetarians and they prepared some extra vegtetarian options especially for us!  The sandwich fillings were egg & snow pea tendrils; cucumber & sour cream; cheese & tomato; roasted eggplant & salad greens; and roasted capsicum & parmesan.  My sister (non-vego) also had smoked salmon and chicken sandwiches.

Finger sandwiches

Next, we had scones.  It would have been nice if they were served warm, but I guess with the large number of guests this might have been difficult.  We each had a plain scone and a raisin scone.  They were both nice, but I'm not a huge fan of raisins so I enjoyed the plain one more.  Scones are served with a choice of strawberry or summer berry jam and double cream.  I'm not sure if they maybe use yeast to make the scones rise as they had an almost bread-like texture - quite different to most scones I have had before.  They were nice and fluffy though.

Plain and raisin scones

Finally, there was a selection of mini-cakes as well.  The layered one was a peanut butter and jam (or jelly) inspired number which was quite nice; the yellow cake was some kind of lemon & passionfruit mousse served atop a thin biscuit base with a white chocolate decoration; the white chocolate cone was filled with a white chocolate mousse and a fresh raspberry on top of a cake base; and the chocolate cake was like a mousse with a fruit sauce (I think it was apricot) in the middle and a tiny piece of edible gold foil on top (very fancy!).  The lemon & passionfruit cake was my favourite!  We were all so full by the end though, haha!

Cake selection

Of course High Tea wouldn't be complete without a nice cuppa!  There is quite a good selection of tea, ranging from the traditional Earl Grey, English Breakfast etc. to some herbal and floral inspired teas as well.  I started off with the Hotel Windsor Blend which was nice but quite similar to English Breakfast.  Next, I tried Earl Grey Twist.  This was also nice, but I think I missed the "twist" as to me, this just tasted like Earl Grey.  The twist is supposed to be lemon myrtle.  I could taste a bit of citrus but it was very subtle.  But like I said, this was nice nonetheless.  I finished up with a pot of Sultry Chai which I really enjoyed.  I quite like drinking proper brewed chai tea that is peppery and spicey, much better than the overly sweet, flavourless powdered stuff!  I wanted to try the Orange Pekoe and the Chamomile & Orange Blossom as well, but I guess they will have to wait for next time.  In case you haven't guessed by now, I am a hopeless tea addict, haha!

High Tea

Last but not least, this is what I wore.

High Tea Outfit

 Blouse - Valleygirl; Pants - Forever New; Heels - Rubi; Braclets - Mimco and Etsy

This was my first high tea experience so I was a little unsure of the dresscode.  I had planned to wear a skirt but that fell through when I realised that the skirt I wanted to wear is way to big for me now and needs to be taken in.  In the end, I felt ok wearing pants though, in fact one of my friends said I was probably the most dressed up of all of us (not sure if that was true though).

I would definitely love to go for High Tea again and I think it would be interesting to try out a few different places.  The tea at Hotel Windsor is quite traditional, but I think there are hotels that do a more modern twist as well.  I'd also love to go back to the Windsor on the weekend for the dessert buffet which does look fantastic from what I've seen on various blogs, but I think I'd probably need to fast for at least a week before, and probably after as well, haha!

Thanks for reading!