So this is my first post after years of casually joking with friends and family about how I should start a blog about Afternoon Teas around the World I have finally done it. Although I decided it was a pretty long winded title for a domain so ended up going with Travels with Tea. So here we go…
My name is Jess and I love the tradition of afternoon tea. It could be my British heritage or that I’m a social person but not much of a night time partier that attracts me to the deliciousness that is small sandwiches and scones. I’ve had afternoon tea on most of the continents except for South America and Antarctica. I hope to do the former soon and the latter I’m not sure hosts any formal afternoon tea events so maybe I’ll just have to host one there myself one day.
I’m not exactly sure who first took me to an afternoon tea but I think it was perhaps with my best friend Sophie and I think it was at the Stamford Hotel in Circular Quay in Sydney Australia (where I’m from) and we can’t have been more than 13 years old. It must have been an experience that we really enjoyed as we continued to make it a regular event in both of our lives for the next 20 years. Now I take my husband John who had never been to one before I dragged him along to The Windsor in Melbourne 5 years ago (I think it’s still my favourite afternoon tea in the world) and ever since it’s been a tradition in every new city we visit.
In each place we visit or live (we move for work every 3-10 months) we have limited time to find a new afternoon tea experience so I spend hours at 3am when I’m wide awake jetlagged researching the perfect place to go. You could say I’m pretty close to an afternoon tea addict. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to afternoon tea so I avoid places that don’t serve scones as part of their menu. Similarly I’m a clotted/thickenedrealcream nut so if the cream that a place serves comes out of a spray can then I think it should go in the bin. So hopefully you won’t find any places serving spray cream in my reviews. My tea of choice day to day is Orange Pekoe tea and I have a hard time passing it if it’s on the tea menu but sometimes I stray if something stands out to me and I’m feel adventurous. You could call me fussy or just stubbornly know what I want. I’m sure my husband has other names to call me.
I’m hoping that my blog helps those who travel lots and love afternoon tea to find places to go and trust that it’ll be the experience that they’re looking for. I do lots of research before I go somewhere (my husband would probably say over researched) so hopefully if you’re reading this it’ll mean that you don’t have to. I follow a few bloggers who talk about afternoon tea but they all seem to be just in their local area and so I’m never sure whether to put all of my trust in them as it’s a new blogger I’m following the advice of in each city. That’s where I’m hoping that this blog comes in handy to those who like me are constantly on the move and going to places that perhaps people don’t straight away think of for an afternoon tea. Like Asia, Africa and the Middle East. I’m going to mix it up between new places and going back and re-visiting places that I’ve been to before.
Thanks for reading so far and if you’d like to reach out to me feel free to comment below or send me a message via the contact page on this site or on the various other forms of social media that I’m a part of.
