Blooming tasty teas

19th May 2009

To celebrate this year's Chelsea Flower Show, some of our favourite tea places have devised fabulous floral menus to tempt you. Alexandra Fullerton experiences the rhapsody in bloom!

While 'tea' has come to be the catch-all term for the classic cuppa and a variety of fruit and flower brews, true 'tea' (whether green, black or white) always comes from the Camellia sinensis plant. While there are countless fruit and floral drinks out there masquerading as 'tea', these are actually tisanes. If you love the scent of flowers but don't want to downgrade to a watery tisane, there are plenty of floral teas that mix real tea leaves with the petals of some of our best loved flowers. They're perfect for drinking at the time of year when Britain's gardens start to bloom.

At Grosvenor House on London's Park Lane, there are double floral celebrations. The Award of Excellence-winning hotel celebrates it's 80th birthday this year. To mark the occasion a rose from one of the UK's leading rose producers has been commissioned to commemorate the event. The delicate cream rose is sweetly fragranced and will be launched at this year's Chelsea Flower Show - and then planted in a garden in Hyde Park (which the hotel overlooks). Once you've smelled the roses, take a seat in the hotel's elegant Park Room and enjoy their exquisite Rose Tea. This has also been created to mark the hotel's birthday along with this year's Flower Show. With a glass of rose Champagne, delicious scones (described as "London's most scrumptious") and a range of fragranced fancies decorated with rose petals - including a raspberry and dark chocolate macaroon, complete with a pipette of rose-flavoured liquid with which to inject some extra flowery flavour - the tea offers a horticulturalist's heaven and is accompanied by rare Golden Rose Heart tea from Iran. Guests can also enjoy a Flowering Red Amaranth Tea (a hand-tied green tea wrapped around a beautiful red amaranth flower) and Flowering Jasmine and Lily Tea (another green tea hand-tied around flame orange lily petals and jasmine flowers),
86-90 Park Lane, London, W1K 7TN / www.londongrosvenorhouse.co.uk / 020 7499 6363

At The Athenaeum you can partake in a whimsical Garden Floral Tea, inspired by the gardens at Chelsea, and available from 18th May. Delicious sandwiches are followed by suitably floral orange blossom scones with clotted cream and jam or lemon curd. But the cakes and pastries are where the garden theme really blooms - you'll be treated to a selection of delicacies that include iced floral tea cakes; rose-scented meringues; fairy cakes decorated with sugar flowers; light rose cream with champagne jelly; vanilla cheesecake with edible frosted flowers; mixed fruit tartlets with lavender jam and mint chocolate dipped strawberries.
The Athenaeum, 116 Piccadilly, London W1J 7BJ / 020 7499 3464 / www.athenaeumhotel.com

Head to Brown's Hotel, winner of this year's coveted Top London Afternoon Tea Award from The Tea Guild, for more floral fabulousness. As well as 17 different floral teas on the menu (including Rosebud and Jasmine) you can indulge in warm scones with rose strawberry jam, violet blueberry muffins, elderflower jelly with apple compote crumble and orange blossom cake - along with a selection of sandwiches too! Available until 24th May.
Brown’s Hotel, Albemarle Street, Mayfair, London, W1S 4BP / 020 7493 6020 / www.brownshotel.com

As well as offering scrumptious floral tea-time treats, Claridge's will cover their tables with a scattering of exotic petals to bring the vibrant colours and exquisite scents of the Chelsea Flower Show to afternoon tea. The hotel's pastry chef has created cakes covered in edible flowers and fragranced fancies with hibiscus flower, lychee, rose, raspberry, lavender and strawberry flavours. Of course Claridge's famous raisin and apple scones will be served with Marco Polo jelly (a tea-infused jam) and clotted cream too. There are thirty teas available to accompany the tasty treats along with floral-flavoured jam sandwiches. Available until the 25th May.
Claridge's, Brook Street, London W1K 4HR / 020 7409 6307 / www.claridges.co.uk

The Award of Excellence-winning Orange Pekoe have commissioned a striking window display from a local artist - drawings of elegant flowers have blossomed over the shop's glass window in time for Chelsea.
Orange Pekoe, 3 White Hart Lane, Barnes, London SW13 0PX / 020 8876 6070 / www.orangepekoeteas.com

Bingham in Richmond are running a Chelsea Flower Show Afternoon tea where you can indulge in garden-inspired delights. Along with a selection of sandwiches, plain and fruit scones there is a wide choice of teas such as Jasmine Gold and Flowering Osmanthus. Special confections concocted to commemorate this year's Flower Show include fig and blossom honey madeleines and a rose petal vacherin. Available until May 23rd.
Bingham, 61 - 63 Petersham Road, Richmond, TW10 6UT / 020 8940 0902 / www.thebingham.co.uk

Previous winner of The Tea Guild's Top Tea Place award in 2007, Peacocks in Ely are running a Celebration Chelsea Flower Show Cream Tea from May 20th to 23rd. Customers will be able to sample two handmade fruit scones, served with quince and rose petal jam and a pot of violet or rose petal tea. As well as these specific blends Peacocks also has an extensive range of floral teas including Blue Lady, Cerisier (cherry blossom), Orange Blossom, Blue River (a green tea with flowers and fruit) and Norfolk Lavender.
Peacocks Tearoom, 65 Waterside, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4AU / 01353 661100 / www.peacockstearoom.co.uk

All of Bettys' tea rooms in Yorkshire serve delicious teas that mix leaves and petals. The China Rose Petal is one of the most popular, being a mix of China Congou black leaf tea, layered with pink rose petals. The taste is mellow and subtly sweet while the aroma is redolent of an English rose garden. Bettys Blue Sapphire is another tea exclusive to the famous tea merchants and it mixes regular tea with blue cornflower petals (the petals represent the sapphires that are found close to the Sri Lankan tea gardens). It's recommended that this tea is drunk with a drop of honey to enhance the flavour - and of course some of Bettys famed cakes (we're particularly partial to their shortbread) will go down a treat too!
www.bettysbypost.com