Our tea was served right away, each in its own china pot. I was impressed with the large size of the pots. It gave me the impression that they wanted us to linger with our tea. The food was served on a 3-tiered platter. They served precisely 3 (or 6) of everything, so we didn't have to bicker over who would get the last treats. Before sampling any food, we all poured our teas. The table was set with sterling strainers, the kind that sit in the top of the cup and the tea is poured through them. Very elegent. My tea had a lot of whole leaves, and the other teas clearly had bits of citrus rind in with the tea leaves. They were definitely high quality teas.

After we had a bit of tea, and commented on how much we liked our choices, we started in on the food. The raisin scones were still warm, and served with soft whipped butter. There was no Devonshire cream (as indicated in the menu), and Natasha pointed out that the preserves were simply jam. There was just strawberry, no marmelade either. The sandwiches were tasty, though I thought the plain white bread was a little bland. None of us liked smoked salmon, but the egg was delicious. I was surprised that they didn't have cucumber sandwiches. The tiny fruit tarts had a huge strawberry in the centre that was just delightful at this time of year. I savoured every one of the pastries, and could have easily finished off another platters-worth, especially the tiny, moist, chocolate brownies.

Part way through our afternoon, Crystal pointed out that the background music was a muzak version of "Desperado". I would have expected something a little more classical.

Our servers topped up our pots with fresh hot water periodically, and we stayed for nearly 2 hours. That afternoon happened to be the final hockey game of the Winter Olympics, and since Canada was competing for the gold, we all decided it was time to go so we could watch the end of the game (Canada won, btw). I'm sure we could have stayed for another hour, otherwise.