LONDON'S Most Expensive vs Cheapest AFTERNOON TEA

when the average american thinks of london a few things come to mind buckingham palace those cute red phone booths and of course afternoon tea on our family's recent trip to london we thought we'd do a little experiment we set out to try the most expensive afternoon tea in london as well as the cheapest afternoon tea in london to see how they would stack up against each other so which one did we like better keep watching to find out you're watching top flight family we're the sunovi family from new york city and last year we visited 21 resorts in 2021 now that major cities around the world have reopened this year we're visiting 22 cities in 2022 this is city number one [Music] we began our experiment at four seasons hotel london at park lane this luxury hotel is located in mayfair an affluent area in the west end of london not too far from buckingham palace they serve afternoon tea in their amaranto lounge and restaurant it's a very dramatic space with predominantly red and black decor we were seated right near the windows so we had lots of natural light the table setting was simple but elegant you will find in a portion of the afternoon all the selection of the sandwiches the scone the pastry selection of tea and one glass of special champagne have you ever wondered where the tradition of afternoon tea came from the invention of it is usually credited to the seventh duchess of bedford anna maria russell in the mid-1800s the evening meal in england was moving later and later in the day because of urbanization and industrialization people often wouldn't eat until 9 pm or later many hours after their midday meal the duchess was one of queen of victoria's ladies in waiting and she got tired of the quote sinking feeling she'd have around 5 pm each day when lunch was long over but dinner was still hours away so she started requesting tea bread and butter and cake every day in the late afternoon she'd invite her friends to join her and soon this afternoon ritual became a big hit among the upper classes and that's how the tradition of afternoon tea was born all right you know what tea you want yes i'm gonna have black tea we're gonna have white black tea just to match your outfits no amaranto serves a nice variety of teas from the brand jing everything from black tea to white tea from oolong tea to green tea and an assortment of herbal infusions made of ingredients like rosebuds chamomile and blackcurrant but of course our mission was to try one of the most expensive afternoon teas in london and if we were going to accomplish that we couldn't settle for drinking just tea this mission called for some champagne and not just any champagne 121 pounds per glass this nearly 20 year old dom perignon p2 champagne is a serious splurge my breath is going to smell like perfume what is it green you tell me yeah it's green green tea doll she drinks like like five tea bags worth of green tea like every single day it's ridiculous why are we drinking with our spoon taste test why we got some spinach with her tea here i got some brownies you know those are tea leaves right here down here we've got the cucumber and cream cheese followed by the egg mayo then we've got the smoked salmon and corn fed chicken with the cornish crab then on the second level we've got the strawberry tartelette with champagne caviar pineapple coconut lemongrass peach and yogurt and then that's the dark chocolate up here we've got the strawberry and lemon battenberg cake and the carrot cake with coconut so pretty right what is this little jelly thing it's like applesauce it's strange yummy [Music] you don't need both pinkies so it turns out the whole idea that it's classy to stick your pinky out when you drink tea is a total myth in fact it's actually considered to be a bit rude according to british etiquette expert william hansen you're not supposed to hook your finger through the handle of the teacup the correct way to hold your teacup is by making your thumb and index finger meet in the handle while the handle rests on your middle finger balancing the cup's weight so sorry but we are definitely doing it all wrong here to any etiquette experts watching this video we apologize for our terrible form pretty soon it was time for scones or as the english would say scones but since we're us-based i'll be sticking with the more vulgar american pronunciation in this video we had two different kinds plain scones and raisin scones they were served with lemon curd devonshire clotted cream and strawberry and basil jam there you go so what was the total damage for our expensive afternoon tea for all four of us it came out to 426 pounds to break that down per person the afternoon tea plus a glass of dom perignon p2 came out to 167 pounds so what did we think of this first afternoon tea i liked my jasmine yeah good i like the strawberry thing the champagne champagne caviar yeah i didn't like the egg salad sandwich that much because it had like green onions in it which i know grown-ups like nobody likes onions the tart was good the carrot cake was not bad because it wasn't really it didn't taste like carrot cake it was just like a crumb cake with a little carrot on top carrot bits in her so i also really liked my tea it was excellent and then out of the sweets i would say that my favorite was the peach one that tasted really fresh like i like it was quite satisfying to like break the shell [Music] now that we tried one of london's most expensive afternoon teas it was time to try one of its cheapest afternoon teas but unfortunately we ran into a bit of an issue the actual cheapest afternoon tea in london that we found is at the fan museum at greenwich and it's only nine pounds per person unfortunately the museum is closed right now due to covid so we couldn't make it there so after doing some research i decided on a plan b which is that instead of doing a full afternoon tea we are gonna try something called a cream tea so what exactly is cream tea well cream tea is believed to have originated in devon a county in southwest england way back in the 10th or 11th century ancient manuscripts from the tavistock abbey show that while the abbey was being repaired monks would reward the construction workers with bread clotted cream and strawberry preserves this became popular with other locals in the area as well as with travelers passing through and pretty soon devonshire cream tea became an institution in its own right we found out that the department store selfridges has a cafe called dollies which serves an inexpensive cream tea so we headed over to check it out all right so we're here at the cinema in this place again selfridges selfridges so this is like a fancy apartment store so we're downstairs having afternoon tea and uh just let you know if you're really sensitive like it knows the sense of we're right on top of the perfume section so it's going to smell like perfume so if that bothers you you should know that but this area is really cool they have a nice little afternoon tea so we're going to check it out so one thing that's cool is the server actually just came back after we placed our order because we had ordered four servings of cream tea and she came back and she was like you know what like each one comes with two scones and they're actually pretty sizable so she's like you're gonna yeah just like you're gonna have like eight fairly large spoons so we reduced the order to two but that was good to know because i think one difference already is the stones at um the four seasons are quite small yeah very modest in size so it'll be interesting to see kind of like what the size difference is here thank you thank you okay so we've got one plain scone one with uh fruit and we've got the cream and the jam and we got another serving over here so yeah cream tea typically includes a pot of tea plus scones strawberry preserves clotted cream and sometimes curds and butter one fun fact though is that there's some controversy over whether you put the jam first or the cream first on your scone apparently in devon where cream tea originated from the custom is to go cream first then jam but in cornwall which has its own version of cream tea it's the other way around as you can see shawn did things the cornwallian way with jam first then cream while serge and i kicked it old school using the devonian method of cream first then jam it's very light and fluffy so yeah these are definitely very fluffy really nice um just having jasmine tea and having earl grey that was the tea itself that's good it's like very beautiful tastes like the you know stuff you what was the total damage for our cheap afternoon tea for all four of us it came out to 36 pounds each serving of cream tea was 13.95 but since it's a large portion it's easily shareable between two people so we only order two sets and the girls had hot chocolate which was 3.95 each so which one did we end up liking better the expensive afternoon tea or the cheap one well of course it's not an exact apples to apples comparison since at four seasons we had full on afternoon tea with tea sandwiches cakes and scones while at selfridges we had cream tea which was basically just the tea and scones i have to say that when it comes to the scones specifically all of us like the scones that selfridges a lot more not only were they more generously sized but they tasted really fresh and had a great texture but of course selfridges can't hold a candle to four seasons when it comes to fanciness between the high-end decor the champagne the beautiful presentation and the deliciousness of the cakes having afternoon tea at four seasons park lane is definitely an experience not to be missed which afternoon tea do you think you would like better leave a comment and let us know did you know that our family is visiting 22 cities in 2022 if you'd like to watch from the beginning of the series just click that video right there to watch city number one if you haven't already please subscribe and turn on notifications and follow us on tiktok and instagram at topflightfamily thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video

Channel: Top Flight Family

Views: 431,253

Keywords: london, afternoon tea, afternoon tea in london, london afternoon tea, most expensive afternoon tea, cheapest afternoon tea, top flight family, 22 cities in 2022, luxury family travel, family travel, travel with kids, family vacation, london england, sognonvi family, england, uk, united kingdom, where to eat in london, afternoon tea london, best afternoon tea in london, high tea london, high tea

Id: ZHwmGSKJc7U

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 16 2022