Après-midi Teahouse has opened there doors in the completely renovated Gaoler’s Mews corner (in the courtyard area behind L’Abbatoir), it’s fits right in to it’s newly renovated building yet the bones are that of one of the oldest in Gastown.
I was first made aware of Après-midi when they were a vendor at Bake for The Quake Japan disaster relief fundraiser that I volunteered at and I eagerly awaited their premium tea house to open ever since. I had the opportunity to finally meet fellow bloggers and cool people @maryinvancity and @br_webb I think it was the perfect place to come~they’ve created a space where you can come in and comfortably relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of busy Vancouver outside and catch up with good friends.
There are lots of comfy high back chairs to nestle back into and chat with friends, read a great book or surf the net on you laptop other iDevice and there is a large sectional area for larger groups.
The great thing about this place is they have a sniffing gallery of 70+ loose leaf tea’s that you can experience to get an idea of what kind of tea you want as well as being able to custom blend you own perfect cup or pot.
After you pick your tea you then get to watch it get brewed and steeped before your eyes on the ChaiWallah
it’s a unique product made to use with premium tea brewers and works with many on the market~when your tea is done steeping it pours thru the bottom of the BrewT brewer they sell on site and in my eyes is the perfect way to make tea and directly into your tea-pot or in this case over ice for an ice tea treat. They have a promo running right now~like them on Facebook and you can have a free tea of your choice, this is Mary’s and myself’s tea being steeped~I didn’t get any pics because it’s so darn good~I drank 1/2 of mine before I got to the table to sit down~its that darn good and refreshing~it was the lemon sorbet fruit tea~completely made of dried fruit and herbs. What I really was after is there $13 cream tea set that was already sold out for the day~that cream they have is pretty darn good so this post is going to be done over 2 days so I can get to experience the creme tea set for you guy’s.
So it’s the next day and I’m in need so some relaxation and some food, this time I went with a hot tea called Exotic Paradise, it’s a scented white tea that is pictured above in the big jar.
It’s a nice light tea that hit the spot for me, there is caffeine in this so don’t go drinking a ton of this stuff at once!. It has light floral notes and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a light refreshing cup of tea.
Next up in the cream tea set is the selection of scones~cheese and cranberry~not together!
they fresh bake these when you order your cream tea set so there piping hot for you to enjoy, with the clotted cream and jam there a perfect combo~its my 1st time having clotted cream and I absolutely love it but my waist doesn’t!
this is the other star of the show, the fresh clotted cream and fruit preserves and honey, when you combine this with the scones you get this perfect bite:
So at the end of the day I think I had the most relaxing hour of my life here at Après-midi and am looking forward to many more!, I think cream tea set is the way to go here if you have some time to spend, for $13 you get a pot of tea of your choice, scones, jam, honey and the most sinful clotted cream and as a total bonus you get 50 grams of loose leaf tea of your choice!
in my case I went with the tea I had today and that was a $7 value right there!. If you would like to read what other people think of Après-midi check out what @maryinvancity has to say on her blog here
