Sunday, March 17, 2024

Tea Review: Muir's Tea Room




I was able to finally make it to Muir's Tea Room! It's located in Sebastopol so it's quite a ways away from me and most of the rest of the Bay. It's unique though in that is an entirely vegan menu and the theme changes around every month or so! This month happened to be Alice in Wonderland theme ♣️




This tea place is really far away and definitely needs a carpool or someone ok with driving quiet a bit if you're coming from the peninsula or south bay it was 2 hours from ~San Jose in really good traffic. I did not make the reservations but apparently it was a bit confusing though they were able to accommodate changes to the reservation by phone. The entire menu is vegan and they had a gluten free vegan tea available also! 
Ease of access (location, hours, ease of making reservation, dietary menu options): 5/10







The atmosphere is really cute and decorated but generally not over cluttered. The Alice in Wonderland theme was present in the decor but wasn't over the top, it blended well with the rest of the what I assumed was the more permanent decor. The Tea Room is in a converted old house and has garden or indoor options for seating. The place settings are eclectic like many tea rooms with matching cup and saucers but each person had a different one and different patterned small plates. The staff were all lovely and complementary, they were quite attentive to refilling our hot water and such. 
Atmosphere (décor, place settings, staff): 8/10




The price of tea is $65. I left full but not overly stuffed. I think it was a good amount of food and we'll balanced with savories and sweets. 
Price (value for money): 8/10





The tea menu had a good variety but wasn't too overwhelming. I ended up getting the Lady Grey and sampling the rose black tea. It was fine? Tasty tea but I kind of wished they had a few more flavored black tea options. They did also have a menu of themed cocktails and mocktails for an add on price! I got the Alice Drink Me one with was good and all of the drinks had this edible swirly glitter in that was kind of hard to get a pic of! 
Tea: 6.5/10




The scones were quite large! They came with a cute little pot of jam and clotted 'cream' that had more of the consistency of whipped cream. For how large the scones were and there being 3 people for that one pot of jam it wasn't quite enough. 
Scones (and/or crumpets): 6/10





The savories were all really tasty and had a lot of different flavor profiles! I was really impressed especially considering everything was vegan, I was a bit worried that everything wouldn't be super satisfying but it was! The only thing I didn't like was the little pastry cup in the middle that was mushroom flavor. 
Savories: 9/10




The sweets were also good! There was a cupcake, jammy dodger, a peppermint patty type chocolate and some fruit. The cupcake was especially nice very moist and good ratio of frosting/cake. I didn't like the cookie as much as it had kind of a odd chewy texture though the flavor was good. 
Sweets: 8/10


Total average rating: 7.2/10

Overall this is a delicious tea place with a good amount of space so you could have a larger meet here. The fact that it's automatically vegan is a bonus for many dietary restrictions and the themes change around monthly so it will usually have something a bit unique each time you visit. The main downside is that its relatively inaccessible for those who don't have cars as it's quite far away from the immediate bay area.


I wore UnBirthday for the Alice in Wonderland theme!
Blouse, cardigan, socks, purse: BtSSB 
Beret, rings, earrings: Angelic Pretty 
Necklace: Majo no Recipe
Shoes: Sheep Puff

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Groundhog Day Theme!




It's a little outside lolita this month but the theme for Bibliotheca is Groundhog Day and I couldn't resist! I'm originally from Woodstock Illinois which was actually the filming location for much of the movie. I was very young when the filming happened and I didn't watch the movie until much later but every time I do I get a little thrill of recognizing the gazebo, or the opera house, or the bed and breakfast house. 


It's such a big thing in Woodstock there's quite a bit of tourism around it! You can take a walking tour (self guided/digital except on some dates in February) of the film locations, there are plaques at many locations commemorating the film and what role it played in the film on the walking tour. 

There's a whole bunch of events the first week in February you can do that are Groundhog Day Movie themed. These events include a trivia night, guided walking tours, a viewing of the film at the local theater, and more! Check out https://woodstockgroundhog.org/ for more info if you're in IL this February and are a fan of the movie! I actually think this would be a unique meet-up idea if people didn't mind driving or taking the Metra train to downtown Woodstock.

If you take the guided walking tour and want a more lolita specific event added on, make sure you get a reservation at Casting Whimsy for tea located just off the square! Or just stop by to grab some loose leaf tea if you don't want to do a full reservation. (You can find my review here if you want more information on what to expect).

For those of you who can't make it to a random suburb of Illinois at the beginning of snowy February there is also a Youtube video guided tour available:


Overall if you are a fan of the movie and happen to be in Illinois I'd recommend checking out downtown Woodstock! If nothing else you can get your picture taken by the giant Bill Murray Groundhog Day Mural located next to the Woodstock theater:

Photo from Real Woodstock






Saturday, January 27, 2024

low-buy update 1 year later

Last year I made a goal to wear the things I have and try to only focus on wishlist items and I mostly succeeded! But did I keep up with a low buy in 2023? Not really unfortunately. I bought quite a few things. I did try to keep it to basics I felt were missing in my wardrobe, things that had been on my wishlist for a while that I got second hand, or purchases from indie brands. I still feel pretty good about my level of purchasing lolita items this year, I think I ended up going a little more to make up for not buying as much last year. I do track my clothing spending (all clothing spending) on a spread sheet because I want to see where my money on clothes is going and what I'm buying at what prices.

Friday, January 19, 2024

Bibliotheca: Wishlists and Dream Dresses!




This January Bibliotheca theme is wishlists and dream dresses. I'm going to combine them a bit here and talk about my current wishlist and all of my dream dresses over the years (some of which I own now and a few that have yet to be acquired!)


Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Tea Review Round Up!

Phew! I did it! All the current standalone(ish) tea places in the bay that I can reasonably get to! It was definitely a journey and I do still love afternoon tea but I think I'll take a pause for a bit unless there's a particularly good theme that someone hosts.

Remember this is only my experience one time and my personal tastes/bias. There's quite a few things (like not preferring smoked salmon, favoring flavored black tea, and being located in the peninsula) that will definitely skew my reviews and ratings. If you live in a different part of the bay area or value different things in your tea experience you'll probably have a different rating than me and that's ok! I'd recommend looking at both my individual review of a place for a more detailed description and other yelp or google reviews to see which you would like to try. 

And without further ado, The List!

8/10: Leland Tea Company

8/10: Dartealing Lounge

8/10: Crown and Crumpet

7.9/10: Pardee Home

7.8/10: Sip Tea Room

7.8/10: Masion Danel

7.6/10: Malaya Tea Room

7.5/10: Lovejoys

7.5/10: Chelo Tea House

7.5/10: Tea Time

7.5/10: The Rotunda 

7.35/10: RoyalTEA Garden

7.3/10: Tyme for Tea

7.25/10: iChina

7.2/10: Lisa's Tea Treasures

7.2/10: Son and Garden

7.1/10 Jade Chocolates 

6.8/10: Dainteas


Honorable mentions that aren't in the bay area:

7.1/10: Casting Whimsy, Woodstock, IL

6.5/10: The Tea Terrace, Las Vegas, NV


Thank you all for coming on my tea review journey with me! It was a lot to do in one year but I am really glad I did it and can now have a more definitive answer for which tea places in the bay area are my favorites 💖


Sunday, December 31, 2023

Tea Review: The Rotunda

I ended up at the Rotunda by myself unfortunately. I didn't realize how popular it would be for afternoon tea around this time so by the time I was late getting a reservation they would only let me reserve for 1. This was both a nice deviation from my usual tea experience but also kind of lonely. I did end up sort of ~live blogging~ my experience as there was no one to be rude to by typing on my phone the whole time in between eating 😅



Saturday, December 30, 2023

Tea Review: RoyalTEA Garden

I was able to get together a mini meet with some comm members to try out the furthest away tea spot from me! I really did want to do a tea around new years to celebrate a bit with people and since Rotunda was very booked I had to switch to RoyalTEA Garden.



Tea Review: Muir's Tea Room

I was able to finally make it to Muir's Tea Room! It's located in Sebastopol so it's quite a ways away from me and most of the r...