midlands food bloggers festive afternoon tea.

Last weekend myself and another 9 midlands bloggers met up for an afternoon of tea, Tiny sandwiches, miniature desserts and an abundance of Instagram opportunities. Mostly though, it was super exciting to put a few faces to Twitter names and finally continue our foodie chats face to face. Off we headed to Hotel La Tour, With no sign of their festive afternoon tea menu online and a head full of Google images from previous reviews. 

Their afternoon tea starts at 2pm on weekends. Don't make the same mistake I did and book it for half 1 with a very rumbly tum. (Sorry everyone!) Either way, the waitress dutifully took our tea or coffee orders and I was soon met with a warm cup of earl grey. It was lovely to catch up with Alex, Roz, Natasha, Emma, Laura and Taylah as well as meet the new faces of Hannah, Terri and Sophie over unlimited hot drinks.

Come 2pm on the dot, floor length afternoon tea stands appeared with an army of servers to lay out the sweet and savoury treats. The phones were out and there were some very serious picture taking faces going on, as well as ooohs and ahhhs at the likes of mini gingerbread men and tiny batternbergs.

In true christmas spirit, the sandwich fillings took the form of turkey and cranberry and salmon and cream cheese, with classic egg mayonnaise and ham and cheese alongside. My favourite was easily the salmon on soft brown bread, closely followed by the fresh egg mayo. But oh, how could I forget the welsh rarebit? Think a tiny cauldron of melted cheese and mustard with crispy slices of toast for dipping. 

Sticking very strictly to my savoury before sweet rule, I dived into the desserts as soon as I'd licked the last sandwich crumb from my lips. The festive sweets included rather charismatic gingerbread men, walnut whip christmas trees, clementine and grand marnier trifles, mini battenbergs and vanilla and cranberry macarons.

My absolute favourites were the Christmas tree and the battenberg. Exactly like a walnut whip and covered in chocolate, the trees were a job to eat but so worth it. Again the batternberg was a no brainer what with my marzipan addiction, although I think a little too sweet for some. I wasn't totally taken by the other desserts (watch out for the green food colouring!), nor the fruit trifle. I think some more chocolate on the dessert tray wouldn't have a gone a miss, or a posh take on a mince pie.

The trays of treats ended on a high with a big slurp of Earl Grey and a signature combination of scone, clotted cream and strawberry jam. I must have about 20 pictures that look exactly like this.

Of course the scon versus scooooone battle commenced as did the jam before cream or after dispute. scone politics. The blogging community is a full little world really, but a lovely, funny one.

Thanks so much to the brands that provided the goody bags too - the foodies were all super chuffed with them. Merry Christmas one and all! 

big thanks to...

kikkoman
thorntons
mackays
burts  

fruitbroo
 yipsy macarons

deli sante
onken 

nakd
seasoned pioneers

propercorn

stur

Note: We all paid for our own afternoon tea and Hotel La Tour did not know we were reviewing the experience.