Dailies

Afternoon Tea at The Fairmont Empress

By Joy ⋅ May 1, 2007 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

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[a long-overdue post]

First, you are welcomed by a gracious host. We were greeted by the manager, who I also saw the previous day when I tried to go in for tea by myself without a reservation, and he remembered me. [He was nice enough not to tell me that I was an idiot for not making plans beforehand.] We were seated on beautifully designed chairs. Before you even get presented with the menu, you feel like royalty.

Our server was very nice. He insisted that we pick The Empress Tea for our tea. We did, and it was so good. All three of us prefer our tea plain, but he said it’s worth it to try with milk and sugar. It was downright heavenly that I think we finished four pots of tea. The sandwiches, cake, pastries, and chocolate were perfect. I had a personal favorite, the green tea cream puffs! Oh my!

The manager went to our table to ask how our tea was. Excellent, of course. He said if we wanted more food, we could as for anything we like. I should have asked for more cream puffs. I totally regret that. He was absolutely nice, that I sent him a Thank You card.

It was a lovely afternoon experience, and I absolutely recommend it to tea lovers who visit Victoria. You will also be able to purchase their different tea flavors to bring home, and trust me, you will end up buying a LOT. They also take orders to ship, and I think I’ll be ordering more soon because my boyfriend is hooked on the Long Island Strawberry Loose Tea. It smells soooo damn good. There were so many pretty things to buy at the store across the tea lounge that I didn’t think we’d be able to leave in time for the ferry back to Vancouver!

Tea was about $50 per person, tax included, gratuity excluded. I had no qualms giving a 25% tip because the service was impeccable. They also gave out a box of 10 2-teabag The Empress Tea to each one of us. That was a nice touch.