A Posh English Afternoon Tea at The Slaughters Manor House, England

Honestly, we didn't have the best weather when we have been in England for our annual vacation a little over two weeks ago. It was raining quite a bit and it was unusually cold for the season. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our vacation abroad very much, making the best out of every day regardless of the typical English weather caprioles.

One day was particularly cold and rainy though, and we hardly made it to drag us out of our cozy and warm cottage and realize our plans to explore the charming Cotswolds villages of Lower and Upper Slaughter.

When we parked the car in Lower Slaughter, an impressive manor house in the middle of the village caught my eye with an inviting sign reading "Afternoon Tea" at the entrance gate of the property. When we got closer it turned out to be The Slaughters Manor House, a three-star hotel. We took a closer look at the house...




...and briefly toured the beautiful, well-kept grounds. Isn't this formal "blue garden" lovely?

I always fall for old statuary like this pretty lady surrounded by blue delphiniums and catmint placed in the center of the formal garden shown in the photo above.

After the initial quick look, we dismissed the idea of having an English Afternoon Tea there, because this place seemed to be quite upscale. We dutifully stuck to our original plan and walked an admittedly very beautiful footpath called the Warden's Way to Upper Slaughter (highly recommended for a sunny day!) and explored this charming sleepy village. When we returned back to Lower Slaughter we were so cold and wet that I really felt like having an English Afternoon Tea as a treat. After our rainy walk, posh and fancy somehow wasn't so much of a concern anymore but sounded now on the contrary quite appealing. The need for something warm, delicious and lovely was just overriding any other objections. After all, who doesn't need a special reward from time to times?

So we walked up to the manor house hotel, again.

The entry looked like right out of a fairytale.

The staff was quite friendly and gave us the option to have our tea in the lounge or the library. After a brief reflection, we decided to take our seats in the beautiful lounge and ordered a Full Afternoon Tea to share. And then, after a short wait, the highly anticipated tea arrived! What a feast for the eyes! 

Let's take a closer look: It contained a selection of finger sandwiches, a plain and a fruit scone, clotted cream and jam, and some very fancy sweets. Tea or coffee was included. My husband went for a Darjeeling, which was quite delicious. Instead of tea or coffee, I preferred just hot water with lemon. 

The lounge was such a lovely stately room with a beautiful fireplace, a wonderful ornate white-painted ceiling, beautiful parquet floors, and tasteful modern furnishings. The wonderful ambiance of this space definitively contributed to our overall English Afternoon Tea experience.

Close-up of the sweets. Such a beautiful presentation!

When the waiter brought the three tiered tea stand, he explained to us what all the items were, but some of the descriptions were so complicated that even he got stuck. So please, bear with me that I am not able to explain the tea treats in more detail. 

Overall the savory treats were good. The little bite of salmon on the cracker was outstanding though, the fish just melted in the mouth. The scones were average. Some of the sweets tasted extraordinarily delicious like for example, the nutty mousse served in the special glass. The only sweet that I wasn't sold on, was the one that looked like a mini eclair filled with red and green cream. To me, it tasted a bit synthetic and I hope, that they didn't use artificial food coloring. 

  

Cut through, this fancy sweet tea treat revealed a tart heart. It was ultra delicious! 

I love chocolate and this sweet tasted just heavenly.

As we had initially expected, with 30 British Pounds (about 39 US Dollars)/person having an English Afternoon Tea (yes, that is without bubbly!) at The Slaughter Manor House is on the pricey side,...

...but the beautiful presentation, some extraordinarily good tea treats, and a wonderful atmosphere make up for that.

I would love to come back and enjoy this special tea, again.

Before I finish, I would like to let you know that I am on Instagram now. I post daily and would love if you would pop over to my Instagram account and see what I am up to there. Of course, if you would follow me on Instagram my joy would be even greater! You can either click the link in this text or use my Instagram button on the sidebar to the left of my blog.

Wishing everyone a lovely rest of the weekend, and in addition to that, my American readers, a wonderful 4th of July. Maybe you find the time and treat yourself to a special tea time as well.

See you hopefully soon,

Christina

 I am linking to
Rustic & Refined - Dishing It & Digging It  //  Dwellings - The Heart of Your Home - Amaze Me Monday  //  Between Naps On The Porch - Metamorphosis Monday  //  Antiques and Tea Cups - Tuesday Cuppa Tea  //  Cedar Hill Farmhouse - The Scoop  //  Sweet Sensations - Celebrate Your Story  //  Savvy Southern Style - Wow Us Wednesdays  //  Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden - Tea In The Garden  //  A Delightsome Life - Home and Garden Thursday  //  Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson - Share Your Cup  //  21 Rosemary Lane - Share Your Style  // Vintage Mama's Cottage - Thursday Favorite Things  //  French Country Cottage - Feathered Nest Friday  //  Rattlebridge Farm - Foodie Friday and Everything Else  //  Shabby Art Boutique - Create, Bake, Grow & Gather  //  How Sweet The Sound - Anything Goes Pink Saturday  //  My Soulful Home - Sundays at Home  //

An Elegant Autumn Tea

This autumn has been a very busy time for me, hence no blog posts for almost six weeks. I am always amazed how much I do miss blogging, when I don't get around to do it, I almost become a little cranky. So I am happy that this Thanksgiving my husband and I have taken four days off, which gives me the chance to finally write a new post, again.

Hardly anything is more calming and enjoyable for me than having a cozy tea together with my husband at our house and recently on a Sunday afternoon I felt that is just what I needed. I was in the mood for a little elegant autumn themed tea time. So I baked some fresh pumpkin-date scones and set the tea table really pretty with my best china, fine cutlery and other beautiful things that are dear and meaningful to me. Today I would like to share some photos with you of this special occasion.

This is my little tea table set up in front of our fireplace. I think it looks really inviting with the candles lit and the warm California autumn sun shining on it and illuminating the scene.

Just in case you wonder: Originally there were two tea place settings, one for my husband and one for me, but they didn't photograph well. So for the photo shooting we took one away, but put it back later after the photos were taken and when we enjoyed our tea together.

The recipe for the gluten-free pumpkin-date scones came from the September/October issue of the Tea Time magazine, one of my favorite tea publications. I am always looking forward to the next issue.

When I was searching for a tea to serve with the scones, I found this pretty tea caddy in our pantry and thought it would bring some lovely autumn colors to the otherwise set in neutral tones tea table. This tea caddy was a gift from my husband to me, that he brought back from one of his many business travels to Japan and it contained a lovely green tea. 

The base color of the tea caddy fit very nicely with the white pumpkins that I put out as decoration as well.

But I decided that a green tea was not the right choice to serve with the pumpkin and date flavors of the scone, so I opted for an organic Rooibos Chai that I had on hand from Numi Organic Tea. I prefer to drink it plain, but it is great with milk as well. 

The scones were ultra delicious with great flavors fitting for the season, but for some reason they didn't rise much. I wonder if I forgot an ingredient from the recipe? I will try to make them again and see if they turn out differently. By chance I found my scone cutters that I bought on one of our travels to the UK after I baked the scones for this tea. I will use them the next time, which could also help with the shape of the scones. 

The scones were so good they could be eaten plain, but to make our tea even a little more special I indulged us with clotted cream. Usually I serve the clotted cream in a bowl that I place on the table together with a bowl of jam or lemon curd. This time I didn't need any of the other two classic condiments that scones are usually served with. So I thought about a nice, stylish way to present the clotted cream on the table. 

Then suddenly I had an idea. How about using my recently acquired antique crystal salt cellars, the maker is Hawkes for you who are interested, as a vessel for the clotted cream and present them on the tea plate itself? I think it looks great and brings a very elegant touch to the table. You can never go wrong with some bling! 

The china that I am using is Rosenthal 'Maria Weiss', which I brought with me from Germany when we moved to the US. After so many years I am still in love with it, but I have to admit that I haven't used it much. I hope to change that in the future. What are pretty things for, if you don't use and enjoy them?

There is a practical reason though that doesn't help to get this china out more frequently: I insist to wash it by hand. As many of you know the dish washing detergent for the dish washer is quite destructive to the glaze of china and this porcelain set is way too precious to me to be exposed to that harsh treatment.

Rosenthal 'Maria Weiss' creamer and sugar bowl.

Another very dear to me item on this tea table are the Victorian knifes. They are also from England, we bought them in an antique shop over there. And no, they were not a steal, but they are so beautiful that I just had to have them. When I look at them I always think of Victorian ladies, elegantly dressed in lacy, white clothes.

Details on the blade of the knife. It feels very touching to me that someone put the love and detailed work and great craftsmanship into these (butter-)knives to make them as pretty as they are. Nowadays it is very rare that efforts like this are made to simply create something beautiful that generations to come can enjoy.

You can clearly see the stamps on the sterling silver blade of the knife, that tell you exactly when the knife was made and where. I somewhere have a book about silver hallmarks, but it might still be in one of our moving boxes. Uppps...

Showing you these photos and writing the text almost feels like I am having tea with you, my dear readers, it just brings me a little closer to you and I hope my post invokes mutual feelings in you as well. I truly wish it would be possible to share tea with you in reality, but at least we can do it over the internet and who knows maybe we meet one day in person and I can invite you for tea for real!

I hope that everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful, peace- and joyful Holiday surrounded by friends and family. Maybe you find some time this weekend to slow down and enjoy some tea time yourself. Elegant or simple, it doesn't matter, it is always such a lovely treat to brighten up the day.

Thanks for stopping by! Your visits and comments are making blogging always worthwhile and so much fun for me.

Warm regards,

Christina

I am linking to

Life and Linda - Dishing it & Digging it
Antiques and Teacups - Tuesday Cuppa Tea 
One More Time - Share it One More Time
 Cedar Hill Farmhouse - The Scoop
Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson - Share your Cup
Savvy Southern Style - Wow Us Wednesday
Vintage & Co - Let's Talk Vintage
The Charm of Home - Home Sweet Home
French Country Cottage - Feathered Nest Friday
Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden - Friends Sharing Tea