Tea Four, Too

A few words about clotted cream.

First of all, get past the name.  It took me years. Literally, years.  But I have finally seen the light.

I was first introduced to it by my beautiful bride decades ago - she had learned to love it during her first trip to London with her sister Annie in the 1980s.  But for decades, our clotted cream experience was relegated to a December pick-up at the British store in downtown Newburyport. It was considered a treat, but still one I couldn't bring myself to try.  Again, the name.

Fast forward to 2018.  And a trip to London where clotted cream is as commonplace as a cruller.  And now, I have regrets that most of my life has been spent not experiencing the glory that is clotted cream.

It's a thick cream made by indirectly heating cow's milk using steam and leaving it in shallow pans to cool slowly.  During the cooling, the cream content rises to the surface and forms those - ugh - clots.

And let me tell you, it is exquisite atop a scone, of which we indulged in MANY during our London excursion.

Which brings us to a pair of high teas that our beautiful daughter lined up for us whilst we travelled the neighborhoods of London with her, making these as authentic a British experience as she could dream up

First up was the Wolseley (you can check it out for yourself here: The Wolseley )

The Wolseley is located a block away from Picadilly Circus, designed by architect William Curtis Green and constructed in 1921 as a car showroom for Wolseley Motors.

For us, it was a showcase for scones, tea sandwiches, and an overwhelming amount of petits fours

We were treated to back-to-back High Teas, when on the following day, Heather took us over to Knightsbridge, and the Egerton Hotel.

The hotel and its neighbors were believed to have been built somewhere around 1820.  They've got a fascinating history on its web page, which can be found here:  The Egerton

My queen was in her glory, her family around her, a tea room to ourselves, and scones and tea on the menu

Since World War II, the property became part of the London Hostels Association, which provided accommodations for visitors to London for events such as the Olympics and the Queen's Coronation in 1953.  It's a five-star boutique hotel that's not to be missed.

It gets the thumbs up from my two scone scions 

A side note: as we enjoyed our afternoon tea, in comes a woman wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, checking in to the hotel.  We immediately detected her accent and her use of the word wicked, so natch, we had to introduce ourselves.  She was from Chelsea, Mass. 

And here it is - the aforementioned clotted cream, complete with its own armada of scones and jams.

Really, words and/or pictures just don't do this British treat justice.

Cheers, love!