For my birthday this year I wanted to try a new afternoon tea place! Since I have basically exhausted all the ones that are close we ended up going pretty far out to Stockton to go to Blossom Tea Room
Blossom tea room is about a 1 hr 35 minute drive from us which is quite far in a somewhat random stripmall at the edge of Stockton. Definitely needed a car to get there but at least there was plenty of parking. To make a required reservation I was able to email them and they sent a confirmation text two days before. It was nice not having to call to make the reservation! There is a vegetarian menu on request.
Ease of access (location, hours, ease of making reservation, dietary menu options): 4/10
The atmosphere was cute, not quite grandma kitschy but still kind of modern cute kitschy style. The table setups were nice with cute floral patterned padded chairs with the mismatched cups and plates that are usual for tea places. One thing that was a bit uncomfortable to me is that this was very clearly a family business so all the serving staff were the ( pre-teen? teenaged? I'm now officially old, they looked young to me but so does everyone under the age of 20 at this stage) kids of the owner.
Atmosphere (décor, place settings, staff): 5.5/10
The price was $25 per person which was super affordable, especially considering how much food and tea we got! If it wasn't so far out of the way it would definitely be on a recommended list of affordable tea options.
Price (value for money): 9/10
The tea list was decently extensive with different black green and caffeine tea options. You could only order 1 pot at a time that had about 4 cups of tea each but you could try different ones each time you got a refill! We ended up trying about 4 different teas, some of which were more to my taste than others.
Tea: 8/10
The blueberry scones here were a bit flat and crumbly but tasted good! They had clotted cream and lemon curd as accompaniments and while I usually prefer jam for scones it was still pretty tasty. There wasn't quite enough cream for 2 people but we made do.
Scones (and/or crumpets): 7/10
The savories included a summer salad, a tomato bisque soup, 3 sandwiches and a small quiche! I really liked the soup and the chicken salad sandwich. While the sandwiches were the usual sort, nothing particularly creative, I appreciated that there was no smoked salmon!
Savories: 7.5/10
The sweets were a good variety of types but somehow they just didn't quite hit for me. They included a chocolate with raspberry tartlet, a small chocolate cake, lemon square and a banana pudding cup. My favorite thing was a pudding cup but the tartlette and the cake were a bit dry.
Sweets: 6.5/10
Total average rating: 6.7/10
If you happen to be in Stockton, or are in east bay with a slightly shorter drive I would recommend this place as a good inexpensive tea experience- the main drawback for me is definitely the drive! There were several largeish parties of various ages (one with small children and one with ladies around my age and older that looked like some sort of shower or birthday) so this venue would also be good for a medium size meet-up!
My coord for this tea which was a hit with some of the other party goers!
Blouse, barrette, bag, socks: Baby the Stars Shine Bright
Shoes: Queen Bee
Necklace: Majo no Recipe
Also if anyone ever reads these to the end I've started following this person on TikTok that also does afternoon tea reviews with her series of "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Yummy of Afternoon Tea" She does reviews of mostly Canadian tea places but has also done a few ones on the east coast and florida when she visits the United States! She might be good to check out if you want to see some reviews and recommendations for other areas of the US and Canada than just the Bay Area, CA!
The place looks lovely (just as your coord), even with all the drawbacks. Belatedly happy birthday 🎂
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