Guest reviewer: Jim Petts

To tell you the truth I don’t remember this scone too clearly except that it was a life-saver. I was taken over all peculiar in an antiques shop in Corbridge, possibly due to low sugar level, and needed an instant injection of scone-related product. This we found just down the road at Truffles Tea Rooms.

A pleasant small town classic tea-shop doing all the good things that pleasant small town classic tea-shops do, including a range of scone types including this classic. Not exceptional, just a good standard classic scone, served up with a blob of butter (no clotted cream) and good standard strawberry jam. For restorative reasons, and because it was morning, I had a cup of coffee with it. Quite satisfying and just what was needed. After ingesting, we went on our way much improved.

Guest Reviewer: Jim Petts

Not exactly a cream tea, but highly relevant. We attended upon the Town Mill Bakery at Lyme Regis for the elevenses. This is something of a local institution: as well has purveying a splendid selection of bread-based product, they also provide an amazing eating experience based on long trestle tables, large mugs of beverages and a variety of comestibles to suit the hour of the day. Being eleven-ish, toast, muffins etc were on offer, and also the amazing gigantic Jurassic Scone. This came in two types, the plain and fruit, and both were huge. In fact a couple of these kept the writer in calories until 7:00 in the evening without fretting. The scones are available on a help-yourself basis and you position same on a small rectangular plank (a veritable square meal). The trestle tables were supplied with large dishes of butter and apricot jam. Pots are for wimps. The scones were excellent in texture in taste, coming fresh from the oven. The size was slightly intimidating, and this would not be the way forward for purveyors of cream teas for sound economic reasons. The apricot jam is not quite in accordance with Small Pleasures Guidelines, but for the elevenses experience worked remarkably well.

For this excellent interesting gastro-experience, the scones were £1 each take-away, £2 eat-in, but with access to unlimited butter and jam. –>

A damn fine cream tea this. Tea, in a nice pot with real milk - yield, 3 cups. Scone was delivered as shown with lashings of cream on one half and oodles of strawberry jam on the other half, which meant you had to either slap the two together and scarf the lot in one big undignified gobful, or, as I did, embark upon some tricky transferring and stirring action. Scone was a nice soft texture, fruited and darn tasty. Highly recommended.

£3.90 –>

Guest Reviewer: David

Being in Harrogate on a disturbingly autumnal August afternoon it soon became obvious that the best thing to do was to repair to the nearest cream tea outlet. We could have gone to Betty’s (always good food, but expensive and the queue, the queue….). Instead we headed to the Old Swan Hotel. Devotees of detective fiction may know this hotel as the place in which Agatha Christie stayed when she went ‘missing’ in 1926. It was the kind of establishment that simply must provide a good tea.

We were not to be disappointed. We headed into the comfortable lounge and soon made ourselves at home. A quick peruse of the menu and decisions were made: two cream teas and one full English. The ladies opted for tearoom blend; I fancied ringing the changes with a pot of lapsang soushong, but it was not available so plumped for the Earl Grey.

Tea arrived first; teabags (Twinings) rather than loose leaf, but none the worse for this. Plenty of hot water and proper milk in jugs and nice teacups. The food arrived shortly after. The full tea consisted of two rounds of sandwiches; we opted for cheese and pickle, though other choices included smoked salmon, beef and horseradish and ham. White bread and crustless, with a nice mature cheddar cheese and a good pickle (Branstons?); all in all top notch. There was ample cakeage: two really good chocolate brownies. I’m not usually a fan of brownies, but these were rich and moist; just how they should be. There was also a really solid piece of carrot cake with plenty of butter icing. Of course, the most important element were the scones. They were excellent, being well-fruited and moist. We were provided with butter and clotted cream along with a rather fine little jam stand containing six miniature jars of jam (Tiptree), giving a choice of raspberry, strawberry and blackcurrent.

The slight difference between the cream tea and the full English was in the preparation of the scones. The former were served at room temperature, the latter were toasted. I’d not come across the concept of toasted scones before, but the ladies assured me it was quite proper; is this a Yorkshire thing?

All in all an excellent tea in a rather grand hotel; definitely a worthy alternative to Betty’s. Indeed the entire hotel looked rather nice and may bear further investigation (even though the Dining Room looked like something out of The Shining).

£7.50 - Cream Tea
£12.50 - Full English Tea –>

First things first - the museum itself is rubbish. Quite literally. It’s a room filled with a big old load of tat. Including a section of old cafe-style coffee makers - which is essentially like going to a low-rent local auction house where they’re having a bankrupt stock sale.

The tea-room itself is far better quality than it appears. We plumped for the official cream tea - which was a touch pricey, but came with scone AND cake. The scones were a little on the small side, but beautiful - soft, warm and fruity. Cream was ample and jam was strawberry. Cakes, too were moist and full of lovliness.

Tea was served in china pots. Loose leaf (the holy grail!) with a strainer. Choice of teas offered - I chose ‘tea room blend’ and Richy went with the Assam. And the best bit was the tea was delivered along with a miniature timer, so we didn’t dive in and drink the tea before it was brewed to perfection. Class act.

£7.00 –>