Hey!
Meeting up with old friends is fun, especially when you’re partaking in a fancy activity while catching up. Yesterday I met up with one of my high school friends for afternoon tea at T-Buds and had a great time enjoying all the tea-time delicacies and reminiscing about how annoying but easygoing high school life was, so bittersweet!
T-Buds is a cute little cafe and unlike a lot of the other high-tea spots in Toronto it’s pretty casual. You definitely wont be needing to bust out the elaborate hats or fascinators for this party haha. As you walk in you can already see the hundreds of different kinds of tea's they offer because they’re displayed on the wall. It's encouraged to go over, open them up, have a whiff and buy some if you'd like. The prices are all displayed so you won't be judged slowly exploring all the teas, unlike at most stores where you have to keep asking for the workers to show you different teas based on the names.
As for service, we didn’t interact
with the servers that much but they were generally pretty nice and informative
when we needed suggestions to order.
They serve various food items anywhere from
crepes to meatballs but probably their top seller is their afternoon tea
service. There’s a few different kinds of tea services and two people could
for sure share one but of course my friend and I are extra and got one each. According
to our server, The Afternoon Tea and
their Chocolate Afternoon Tea sets
are the most popular orders so we went with those. Each set comes with
different items but both basically had a mixture of sandwiches and mini little
desserts and of course were accompanied by a pot of tea.
 |
| Afternoon Tea |
The Afternoon Tea Set (Tuesday-Friday $24, Saturday and Sunday
$27) included:
- A quiche
- 2 freshly baked scones served with crème mascarpone and jam
- Petit fours (they vary but we got 1 rose macaron and one mini cupcake)
- Fresh fruit
- 6 tea sandwiches (they vary between cucumber and watercress with creamed cheese, roast beef and horseradish-dijion, smoked salmon and dill cream cheese, seasoned tuna and red peppers with lemon zest, smoked turkey and asparagus, curried chicken with green apples and mango chutney, cheddar cheese with sun dried tomatoes or spiced lamb with red pepper hummus.)
- Flute of signature sparkling jasmine tea
 |
| Chocolate Afternoon Tea |
The Chocolate Tea Set ($34) included:
- A quiche
- A mini crepe roll with mole sauce
- 2 scones (one regular and one double- chocolate) served with crème mascarpone and jam
- Fresh fruit
- Chocolate based petite fours (chocolate macaron, raspberries and strawberries in chantilly cream in a chocolate edible cup, chocolate croissant, and a brownie)
- 4 gourmet sandwiches (they vary between cucumber and watercress with creamed cheese, roast beef and horseradish-dijion, smoked salmon and dill cream cheese, seasoned tuna and red peppers with lemon zest, smoked turkey and asparagus, curried chicken with green apples and mango chutney, cheddar cheese with sun dried tomatoes or spiced lamb with red pepper hummus.)
 |
| Quiche and Crepe Role with Mole Sauce |
My friend and I basically went about the meal trying each item at the same time. Everything was really fresh and for the most part also tasted great. Basically the only thing we didn’t like was the crepe that came with the Chocolate Afternoon Tea Set. I love chocolate sauces and I'm not against incorporating them in savoury dishes but usually there's chili or something in it to balance out the sweetness. When you pair a filling that tastes like curry with a sweet chocolaty sauce it just isn't going to work. But I must say the sandwiches were awesome. They in fact were my favourite part of the meal. Each one was dainty and full of flavor. There was an assortment of different shapes and even pinwheel ones that kept it interesting. The scones were also very nice. Both the regular ones and the double chocolate were super fluffy and got addicting with the crème mascarpone and jam that accompanied them. All the other desserts were average, but don’t get me wrong they still tasted yummy.
Since we both got a pot of tea, my friend went with a sweeter fruity kind and I went with a creamy tea. Some teas are labelled as to what kind they are so people can identify what tastes they would like… which is totally a very smart idea, especially for when you have an endless tea menu and get two already indecisive customers like us! I wish I had noted the name down, but the fruity tea my friend got was really tasty. And for myself, I would usually go with a Ceylon tea because well I’m kind of bias to be honest but I tried the server’s recommendation to one of their top sellers and it was indeed nice and creamy as she mentioned. The one downfall with the teas though, was that my friend and I both found that they got cold pretty quickly. But i guess this is no bother because they do add free hot water to your pot, we just didn’t get around to asking. Lastly, I couldn’t even tell you about the Sparkling Jasmine Tea in the flute because they forgot to give it to us at the end :(.
High-tea is such a trendy niche that a lot of people want to try but just don’t want to commit $50 to. If you’re one of those people T-Buds is seriously the perfect place. The concept is well thought out and the product is up to par with many of the other Toronto tea houses but for much cheaper! I definitely have to go back here with my mom or even just to lounge when I start school again.
Naheeda
"Make tea, not war." ~Monty Python
"Make tea, not war." ~Monty Python
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