The British Pantry

This past weekend it snowed all day Saturday, which messed up my plans--I was going to have some friends over for a special tea party. 
Oh well, we haven't gotten much of it this winter, so I guess we were due. 

Hopefully nothing will go wrong with my rescheduled date of next Saturday so I can still feature my party on the blog next week.  Luckily, I went to tea at a local tea room called the British Pantry right before Valentine's Day, so I'll just move up sharing that tea to today!

 The British Pantry (located in Aldie, Virginia--about 25 minutes from my house) not only serves afternoon tea, but it also sells all sorts of British imports.    You can't really tell how cute the place is from the outside, which just makes it all the more fun a place to visit for  tea.

 

Another fun feature of the store is the old London telephone booth out along the road--perfect advertisement! 


The tea room, which takes up roughly half of the building, was decorated for Valentine's Day.  They really did a wonderful job making this area into a quant tea room!

 

 

Each table had a different set of china:

 

We were seated at the last table with poppy dishes in front of the window. 

 

 

My chair faced the wall and this beautiful print:



We each chose a pot of tea from a nice sized collection of teas, many of which were Republic of Tea.  I got a Lady Grey,

 

and of course there was a pretty bone china creamer and sugar on the table.

 

The food was very good, and there was a lot of it!

For the savories:

spinach and bacon and cheese quiches, sausage rolls,

 

 and tea sandwiches including salmon salad, roast beef and mustard, cucumber, egg salad, and a delicious chicken salad  in a phyllo cup. 

 

 

For dessert, we had a Victorian sponge cake, cranberry cookie bars (a cake-like bar with orange zest and white chocolate and cranberries, topped with a cream cheese frosting), mint chocolate layered dessert (with a chocolate cookie bottom, peppermint frosting center and topped with a chocolate fudge), and strawberries.  These were all delicious, but the Victorian sponge cake was my favorite.

After finishing dessert, our scone course was brought out with more strawberries.  These were plain buttermilk scones and they were delicious with real clotted cream and strawberry preserves. 

After enjoying  tea, we headed back out to check out the shop with its pretty collections of china
 for sale,

 

including two cottage sets.

 

There was a bunch of British themed gifts, both tea related

 



 and apparel.

 

 

 

A backroom had a gorgeous purple table with thistles and violets,

 

 

including this lovely two tiered tray.

 

A couple of tea tables were also set and ready for tea:

 



Thanks for joining me!

I'm linking to this tea parties this week:

Tea Cup Tuesday ~ http://www.marthasfavorites.com/
Tuesday Cuppa Tea~ http://www.antiquesandteacups.info/

Bernideen's Friends Sharing Tea 

and Rose Chintz Cottage's Tea Time Tuesday