Here at Mrs Lils there is nothing that we love more than a spot of afternoon tea, so we have decided to start a new feature on the blog.....The Afternoon Tea Diaries.
We often find ourselves stumbling upon afternoon tea served in the most unusual of places so we thought that it might be nice to share this information with our readers. We will always be honest about the menu, price, taste and most importantly, how delicious the tea was.
First up was afternoon tea at The Bluebell in the very pretty Henley-in-Arden. The service costs from £15 and all in all it is excellent value for money.
It wasn't the first time that we have been to The Bluebell for afternoon tea but we both commented on the fact that this time the service was a little disappointing compared to previous visits.
The Bluebell is a lovely pub in the picturesque village of Henley-in-Arden in Warwickshire and has a wonderful feel to it which offers a mix of high end gastro meets elegant vintage. We have eaten there on many occasions and have been lucky enough to dine with them for both lunch and dinner too; most recently I celebrated my birthday there.
So off we went on a lovely summers afternoon....
We were seated at a lovely table near to a window that overlooked the bustling high street so we were perfectly happy to wile away a few hours chatting and watching the world go by.
Afternoon tea was served fairly promptly and the selection of sandwiches and sweet things was very nice indeed. We were most impressed that they had provided some sandwiches without their homemade mayonnaise, as my friend is pregnant, very thoughtful of them we thought.
We had a good selection of sandwiches followed by delicious mini fruit crumble tarts. There was also mini lemon sponges which were nice but we felt perhaps not up to their usual standard in terms of taste. We soon dipped in to the extremely moreish rose and champagne jelly pots and these were simply amazing; the rose was delicately light and considering I am not a huge fan of jelly, I could have eaten these over and over again.
We paused for another cup of tea at this point and this is perhaps where things weren't up to the normal standard that we'd received in the past....I don't think that I have ever had to ask for the pot to be refilled before, as they are generally super attentive. I obviously don't have an issue with asking for new water for the pot, because that would just be lazy, but it took us an age to find anyone to do so and considering that they weren't super busy, I did think this seemed a little odd. It then took them quite a while to bring the fresh water and during the remainder of our service we weren't offered more water again which is just not how it normally is at The Bluebell.
When our new water arrived we both indulged in a delicious scone with cream and jam which I must say was baked to perfection and tasted beautiful.
All in all we spent a lovely afternoon catching up and it was finished off with a huge hot chocolate which was just perfect.
I am sure we will be back at The Bluebell for afternoon tea soon and I am sure than once again all will be well with the service.
Bye for now,
Mrs Lil xx
