Tyme for Tea is in the East Bay Suburbs so it's best accessed by driving and not too far from me in this case. Parking is mostly street parking but it's a small part of town not very busy so we have always been able to get a decently close spot. For Valentines they had a pre-fix menu which is usual. If you have dietary restrictions you can request them at the time of reservation.
Ease of access: 6/10
The decor was very cute and what you would expect of a tea shop that also happens to be on a road featuring a lot of vintage and antique shops. There were some odd cute things too Like this old tub by the bathroom filled with hats for some reason?
The staff seemed quite overwhelmed with the amount of people who had booked for their valentines tea but overall they were able to bring out the tea and food in a timely manner and refill our Champaign/cranberry cocktail glasses at least once. The table wear was matching cup and saucer but mismatched for each setting in that cute way that tea shops generally are.
Atmosphere (décor, place settings, staff): 7.5/10
The price for a standard tea is $41 ($43 if you get the glass of alcohol). It was a decent spread and more heavy on the savories. We were too full to finish and got a box for a few desserts leftovers! They served tea in 3 courses- scone, then savory then sweets rather than the more common 3 tier set-up.
Price (value for money): 8.5/10
The tea menu was actually fairly extensive especially for flavored black tea (my favorite!) but there were almost too many to choose from! So many looked good we eventually settled on a butterscotch and hazelnut vanilla as we were both still kind of cold and wanted warm flavor as well as warm tea. They both were good and accurate with flavor descriptions.
Tea: 8/10
The scone was an apricot scone served with raspberry butter. It was well baked and still warm but a little flat. The raspberry butter was interesting and tasty but I still think I prefer actual jam with my scone! The scone came out as the first course with the pots of tea.
Scones (and/or crumpets): 7/10
The savories came out on a very unique looking tray as the second course. The pesto avocado item and slider were my favorite though the walnut chicken salad was also tasty. The cucumber sandwich had cranberry cream cheese I believe- a nice twist on a classic sandwich! I feel like there was one savory too many though and I would have preferred another small sweet or crumpet with the scone as a replacement.
Savories: 9/10
The sweets were a little basic, it seems the focus of this place is really on the savories! the petit four was good as most are, the chocolate dipped strawberries were refreshing. The sugar cookies were a little large and the truffles were dark chocolate so I wasn't as much of a fan of those.
Sweets: 5/10
Total average rating: 7.3/10
I had been to this place before and will probably go again! I would recommend this place if you are already in east bay suburbs, want a really tasty savories course, or like a bit of bubbly with your afternoon tea.
And of course the outfit I wore to the tea!
Skirt: Color Scheme Pearl Heart
Blouse: Cardigan, Beret: BtSSB
Socks, Necklace: Angelic Pretty
Brooch: Milkribbon
Shoes: Queen Bee
Compared to the savoury selection, the sweet one is almost disappointing. I get that especially at busy times like Valentine's Day the more things that can be prepped in advance, the easier on the staff, but to not have even one more cake-y or macaron-ey thing, especially when so much effort went into making the scone so original, feels at least a little bit like being cheated.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I wonder if I went on a non holiday it would be similar level of attention to savories and lack of effort on desserts! I don't remember my experience here in the past but it's still probably pretty indicitive of what would be on offer in the future, if one doesn't like sweet things as much maybe it would be a plus (or at least not as much of a negative) for them? Definitely felt off balance to me for sure though!
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