Yesterday I created a
Flickr albums collection, of all the times I have done Afternoon Tea (or "High Tea," as the case my be). As of yesterday, I have done it four times—all of them with Shobhit: at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta in June 2008 (also with Dad and Sherri; this was on our train trip to Glacier National Park); and then the most recent three in just the past three years: the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C. on June 14, 2022 (Shobhit's and my 9th/18th anniversary); the Shangri-La Hotel in Toronto, Ontario on June 14, 2024 (Shobhit's and my 11th/20th anniversary); and now, the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle, WA on March 28, 2025 (also with Alexia).
I only just realized, while writing all that out, that all three of the Afternoon Teas we've done in Canada have been in separate provinces. That's kind of cool, I suppose.
I always thought of "High Tea" or 'Afternoon Tea" as a British thing, and thus much more common in Canada than in the U.S. And maybe it technically is. But, when Shobhit and Alexia and I were touring the Festival of Trees at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in december, we happened to notice other people enjoying Afternoon Tea in the lobby. We instantly decided we should come and do it there sometime after the new year. It took a little while, but I finally got it scheduled at the end of January—on the soonest date we could find that worked for all three of us: March 23. Later, Alexia discovered she had a work travel conflict on that date, so, on March 5, I had to reschedule the reservation for March 29. This date actually stuck.
I've actually had this budgeted since I booked it in January. I estimated $210 for Shobhit and me together, with tax and tip. It's expensive. They have all been expensive. Well, I
thought it was expensive in 2008, but at $29.25 per person and a total of over $60 for Shobhit and me together, in retrospect it seems downright cheap. All of them over the past three years have been either just under or just over a hundred bucks per person. The food has been uniformly excellent, though, in addition to being high-quality in both preparation and preparation (read: fancy), so I have tended to find it worth the cost. I have tended to feel the same way about the tea, especially at the Empress Hotels—particularly in Victoria, but also here in Seattle yesterday. Granted, the tea Shobhit chose ("Ontario Ice Wine") was not as good as either Alexia
or I chose ("Jasmine Gold Dragon" and "1907 Orange Pekoe, respectively), but I did really love my tea. Even though I dropped one sugar cube into the first cup I had of mine, which was a mistake, largely corrected with subsequent pours of the hot water.
In any case, we all had a great time. The first thing brought to us was an amuse-bouche, fresh fruit atop cream inside delightful little glass containers. They even had little handled glass lids on top of them but I didn't get a chance to get a photo of them covered because our server, a wonderful young woman named Kassie (we later had a discussion about how Alexia's cat's name is Cassie), removed them before she set the dishes on our table.
The three teapots came after that, and shortly after that, the requisite three-tiered food towers: scones on the bottom; savory bites in the middle; sweets on the top. All were incredible, and Shobhit was all about getting extras of anything we could. I found this tacky, but I also thought it a strong argument, as he stated, that we're spending a lot on this lunch so we might as well make the most of it. Kassie was very accommodating, in any case. Shobhit and I were relieved to find Alexia got a tower of her own, so the two savory bites with meat would be on her own plate—and Shobhit and I got vegetarian substitutes, a creamed carrot inside a savory pastry casing, which was shockingly tasty; and an eggplant bite. Shobhit went out of his way to request that Alexia be able to try the vegetarian versions in addition to the meat based bites she had, something she'd never have gone out of her way to do for herself but which she clearly appreciated once she got to taste them.
The reservation was for 11:15 a.m., so we made it brunch. It was incredibly filling, especially after Shobhit and I each also got a second scone. Oh my god, the scones were good—they came with lemon, berry and butter spreads. And we were there longer than I even realized, after I looked at the time stamp on the photo I took on the escalators while leaving the hotel: 12:55. We were there a solid hour and 40 minutes. It was very casual and laid back in comfy furniture, though, which we also really enjoyed.
I took 16 photos while we were there. Then, after we left, we took a bit of a walk, heading over to Pike Place Market, Victor Steinbrueck Park, and then back home up Capitol Hill. I took five more photos while walking, which was how I got to
21 photos for the day's photo album. This makes it the smallest of the four "Afternoon Tea"
albums I have collected, but only by three shots—the album for Afternoon Tea in Victoria was only 24 shots. It's fine!
Now I need to lean into the rest of my day and the rest of my weekend. I can update you on the rest of it tomorrow, but at least I'll have had Saturday's Afternoon Tea out of the way!
[posted 9:53am]
