Won’t You Please Join Me for Afternoon Tea?

Don’t you just love when hotels offer complimentary afternoon tea? (Especially the fact that it’s served in a parlor. How many parlors do you see nowadays?)

Andy and I had the incredibly good fortune to stay at the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, Maine over the weekend, and one of the many perks was afternoon tea, from 3:30 to 4:30: just the time when you’ve got those inconvenient pangs of hunger!

I somehow feel like I’m partaking in this exclusive, super grown-up event when I take afternoon tea.  Plus, it’s so much fun to see how different hotels/tea shops do it- one variety of tea or many? Savory snacks as well as sweets? Is there gentle music playing in the background? At the Harraseeket, the answers to those questions are many, both, and yes!

The strawberries deserve a special mention: they were oh-so-sweet and plump, the kind that makes your eyes widen as the flavor expands in your mouth, and accompanied by the thought Yes! This is what a strawberry is meant to taste like! The brownies were just as I like them: slightly crinkly-crispy on top, and soft and fudgy in the middle.  While the sandwiches were adorable, I was hoping they would be cucumber and cream cheese. Instead, I have the sneaking suspicion I accidentally ate some tuna fish. Oh well!

I’ll admit that the cheese spread looked impressive (and tasty!) but I reluctantly abstained due to my recent endeavor to eat less cheese (not give up, mind you- there was a beautiful cheese plate at the wedding the next day that I just couldn’t resist!). Here is a shot of the cute serving fork just for the lemon slices:

And some aesthetically pleasing details of the room:

In the town of Freeport, there’s an ordinance dictating how all the roadside businesses should look, i.e. somewhat uniform and not garishly commercial. Here’s the exterior of the hotel:

And even the fast food chains aren’t allowed to look like themselves! It’s kind of weird, but I also love it:

We were in Maine- Freeport, Brunswick and Portland- from Thursday to Sunday morning.  My dear friend, Erin, got married on Saturday evening in a spectacular location right on the Androscoggin River in Brunswick: Frontier, a combination restaurant-gallery-event space.  To my ultimate disappointment, my camera had one of its recurrent tantrums at the hair salon, pre-wedding, and it was inoperable for the rest of the weekend.  Alas! However, Andy took lots of beautiful photos of the whole wedding day, to be showcased soon!

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The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It’s a choice you make – not just on your wedding day, but over and over again – and that choice is reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife.  –Barbara DeAngelis

 

Here are some handy dandy links that may or may not be related to this post:

• The History of Afternoon Tea
• The Top Places to Take Afternoon Tea (in the United States)
• A N0-Nonsense Scone Recipe from the BBC
• NY Times Article on How to Spend a Weekend in Mid-Coast Maine
• A gorgeous lifestyle and design blog that I just won a giveaway from- check it out!
• Would you like to follow me on Pinterest?

As always, I’m so glad you stopped by and I welcome all comments and feedback 🙂