I have tried to locate where to do proper tea in Brisbane and reading all kinds of review online. There are many nice tea shops, but only a few places do proper tea service.
I found two places that are supposed to be high on the list: (1) Hotel Stamford Plaza’s Chocolate high tea and (2) Hotel Sofitel. The review at Stamford is mixed as it is located on the river but service as buffet, not quite of what I want. I don’t want to fight the weekend crowd to get sandwiches and cakes. And the one at Hotel Sofitel has high rating, but of course, I miss the 2-3 weeks prepaid booking time window. Oh well….who knew afternoon tea could be this popular.
Another one that is listed highly recommended is Tea & Niceties in Eagle Heights, right outside Mount Tamborine National Park. But this is a small family business, so it might be a 6 months ahead booking for a weekend sitting. Crazy, isn’t it?
All the tea service runs about same price everywhere, like A$40 for a person. How much does one drink to make up for $40? Talking about unbelievable margin here…. But it is the experiences after all, isn’t it?
I figured I was going up the mountain anyway, might as well give it a try. There might be a cancellation. So I called, following the website exact instruction, a little after 7:30am in the morning. They told me they were still waiting to hear back from one party. They could call me if it was cancelled. But since I have a U.S. cell phone number, that didn’t work either, they suggested I called back after 10:30am. Yes, this much effort to get a sitting for tea and pay outrageous price for it.
I tried my luck before we went into the Skywalk facility. Well, persistence paid off. I secured two seats for my colleague and me for 2pm sitting.
I have to say, the setting is above my expectation. Since it was locate in a small village (yes, village), I wasn’t expecting much. But these two ladies/owners were just like little bees dashing back and forth to serve the eight tables in the entire facility. The shop atmosphere is beautifully set in pink. Yes, girly pink. The tea setting is in silver, little utensils, very very cute.
The food came in a three tier stand. The bottom one is savory with all kind of finger sandwiches, nicely cut in different cookies shapes, even one in heart shape. The middle tier is scones with homemade jams and of course Devonshire cream (yes, I am in love with the cream and jam combo). The top tier is filled with little cakes.
Needless to say, no one could finish all these food!!! But they do provide to go boxes to take the leftover home. I packed my dessert plate to give it to my other colleague when I met up with him for dinner later in the evening. I didn’t touch the cakes at all. I was working really hard on the sandwiches and the scones.
As for the tea, I chose a Stockholm blend, Black tea orange peel safflowers calendula blossoms rose petals vanilla and apricot, as I recognized the name from my visit to The Tea Centre a few days ago. Yum to both tea and food.
This would be a brilliant place for like a baby shower, a bridal shower, taking mom out on a date, etc. In fact, we saw a family of three generations at our next table. Looking at them, I so miss mom, sisters, and the ONLY niece in this family.
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