I tried tea for the first time about three months ago and really enjoyed it, but over the past few weeks in the United Kingdom my actual love of afternoon tea has increased exponentially. My first tea and scone experience occurred two and a half weeks ago in Stratford-Upon-Avon at Hobsons Patisseries and I was delighted to find one more classically British thing that I loved.
I loved the ambiance, the beautiful plating of the pastries, and I even loved the scones. Prior to coming to the UK, I thought scones were hard, dry, and rather tasteless pastries and I had no clue why people ate them. But after my experience at Hobsons it was like I had opened up my eyes to a whole new world. They were flaky, and buttery, and sweet, and just little mounds of golden deliciousness. They were everything I had thought scones weren’t and I was shocked and delighted to discover this. I was ecstatic to finally be able to say I love tea and scones.
But what really “had me at hello,” so to say, was the clotted cream and the lemon curd. Oh the clotted cream and all its sweet, buttery goodness. It’s like a combination of the softest butter and the sweetest cream. And then the lemon curd is just its own sort of specialness, topping off the scone perfectly. It’s sweet and zesty and just the right combination of sticky and spreadable. Both slathered on a freshly baked scone, clotted cream is otherworldly. It’s basically what I wish butter tasted like and what I’m sad it doesn’t.
Though I loved Hobsons, it wasn’t until today though that I truly understood the concept of afternoon tea. I, along with a few other classmates, went to Fortnum and Mason, the specialty gourmet food store of London, and I swear my eyes popped out of my head a little as we entered. The main lobby is just a sea of tea, and truffles, and jams. The downstairs carries more brands of alcohol than I knew existed and the upstairs has designer bags with price tags bigger than some people’s monthly salaries. And then there’s the tea room. Though we didn’t splurge this time and get actual afternoon tea in The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, we did venture to The Gallery for tea, scones, and for a few chips, salad and steak tartare. Thankfully they had decaf tea and it was one of the best decaf teas I’ve ever tasted. It was lemony and crisp, yet still warming to the soul. Finally the scones came out looking like fluffy mounds of heaven, accompanied by cute balls of clotted cream and bright pink jam. I’ll be sad to go home to crescent rolls and biscuits after trying the British superior.