(Photo courtesy: BeautySwot)

A piece of tea news for sweet-toothed readers who think the holy festival of chocolate eggs is not sweet enough: award-winning pastry chef Cherish Finden from The Langham, London, is visiting Hong Kong again. After the success of "Bijoux Afternoon Tea" last year, Chef Finden is bringing the limited edition "Stephen Webster Bijoux Tea" to local tea lovers this year. As suggested by the name, the tea set is inspired by creations of world-famous jeweller Stephen Webster. I have not even the least bit of interest in gems, but the idea of tea x jewels is too cute to resist. ;) That's why I went to Palm Court for the bijoux tea set last year! 

Cherish Finden's Bijoux Afternoon Tea (2011)

Über selection of pastries and cakes inspired by the beauty and sparkle of some of the finest jewels from the most famous houses: Asprey diamonds, Bacarrat eclipse, Chanel pearls,  Délices de Cartier, Bulgari B. zero. I couldn't tell which was which though... 

Sandwiches (Clockwise from top to centre): Foie gras and truffle parfait; cream cheese, piquillo pepper and black onion seed; duck egg mayonnaise with mustard cress, smoked Scottish salmon with horseradish and capers, Atlantic prawns with fennel and crème fraîche 

Scones: Bedford scones, raisins soaked in Louis Roederer, chocolate and marinated orange

Lemon custard with cranberries served with the tea set

Since this tea set is probably different from this year's bijoux tea set, let me just give a quick summary. I approached the jewellery-inspired pastries with skepticism because pretty cakes typically taste really weird. But I was totally wrong, just so wrong! The pastries tasted even better than they looked! The white dress cookie and white fondant cakes, despite being coated with icing, were delicious and not overly sweet. The former was buttery and fresh, whereas the latter moist and velvety. The chocolate cakes, which had an exotic "African" appearance, was super rich in flavour but its texture was so light that it could melt on your tongue. The sandwiches and scones (usually the more boring stuff in a tea set) were ok - I particularly like the chocolate scones and fatty foie gras puff! The best part of the tea experience was, unexpectedly, the lemon custard that wasn't even supposed to be part of the tea set. It's very creamy and had a texture resembling yogurt. The honey-like sweetness was divine! I ordered the Silk Road Blend to go with the tea set, and it was such a wise choice. It's so aromatic and flowery that I hoped it could be made into a fragrance. ;)

Overall, I was quite pleased with the bijoux tea set. Having been to Palm Court for a number times, it was actually the first time I felt truly satisfied with the quality of their food! Their food has always been "ok la"...  there's nothing really worth mentioning about, except their chocolate pastries, which invariably have a rancid taste... :0 It's absolutely a shame because in terms of ambience Palm Court is one of the best tea places in Hong Kong - its plush sofas, posh carpet, and low tables exude British charm, and being one of the lesser known tea places in Hong Kong mean more spacious tables and peaceful atmosphere (which is rare in TST, considering that it has already fallen into the hands of Mainlanders). So my advice is, if you just want a nice place to chat with your friends over a cup of tea, visit Palm Court anytime. But if you care both about the ambience and the food, visit Palm Court later this month for the bijoux tea set! It is going to be really different from the usual tea set that they serve! ;)

 

INFO

Palm Court
Lobby, The Langham Hong Kong, 8 Peking Road, Tsimshatsui, Hong Kong
The Langham Afternoon Tea: 3pm-5:30pm on Monday to Friday, 2:15pm-6:30pm on Saturday, Sunday and public holiday
$198 per person, $378 per 2 persons
*Stephen Webster Bijoux Tea: 21-29 April 2012
$318 per person 
http://hongkong.langhamhotels.com/restaurants/palm_court.htm
 

When I first read about the macaron afternoon tea set at Rendezvous, Sofitel Macau, I was overcome with a fit of exhilaration. Macaron!!! The queen of French pastries, the symbol of pure decadence! It was impossible not to be tempted. Yet at the same time I couldn't help being sceptical because there were too many poor-quality macarons around - and the fact that the tea set was served in heavily Mainlandized Macau only seemed to make things worse. It was not until I came across Gourmet KC's review in September that I decided to give the tea set a try. His comments on the tea set were certainly very positive, but even more persuasive were the pictures of dainty macarons! ;)

So I visited Macau in October and stayed at Sofitel Macau for the third time. I booked the "I ♥ macarons!” room package, which included the Macaron Love Affair Afternoon Tea plus Club Sofitel benefits. I think Sofitel is pretty good on the whole, though I always find its uber-ornate yet brash interior decoration a huge put-off (but to be fair, which new hotel in Macau isn't like that??). The decoration of Rendezvous is basically a hotchpotch of dazzling gold, sparkling crystals, shiny mirrors and glossy satin. Just looking at this picture is enough to make my eyes ache...

A macaron tree at the entrance of the lounge greeted every guest. The tree is a lovely idea but acrylic just isn't sophisticated enough for the purpose.

The tea set arrived within 20 seconds after the order was placed. Props to the staff for their efficiency! But it took me a painfully long time before I could get a satisfactory shot of the tea set. The spiral tea stand is neat (though again, it will be better it's not made of plastic) but certainly not very photographer-friendly...

Starting from the bottom tier: Macarons with panna cotta (mango, strawberry, mint and aloe vera), passionfruit(?) macarons

Also on the bottom tier: salmon macaron (2 pieces), goat cheese macaron, foie gras macaron

Moving up the spiral: wasabi macarons, chocolate macarons

Towards the top: coconut macarons, raspberry custard macarons, macaron cones filled with peanut butter

The little macarons on ascending tiers looked just like a rainbow staircase. :) Not only they were nice to look at, they were also made to near-perfection (perfection = Pierre Herme macarons). The delicate shells were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, an indication of the chefs' skillfulness. Apart from the goat cheese macarons, which tasted exactly like a piece of damp and mouldy rag, all the macarons were delicious. It's interesting that the chefs had replaced traditional sandwiches with savoury macarons - a twist that added fun and surprise to the tea set. The salmon and foie gras macarons were simply to die for. The former was filled with a velvety, creamy paste of salmon, while the latter was loaded with a rich foie gras pate with a hint of figs. Who would have imagined the fragile, bite-sized macarons to be bursting with such intense flavours? ;) Relative to the savoury macarons, the sweet macarons tasted more conventional but they were no less scrumptious. There were also some creative touches to the sweets, best illustrated by the passionfruit macaron that came with a dropper filled with juice (or some kind of liqueur?). Give the dropper a light squeeze and enjoy the macaron brimming with juiciness! Don't worry too much about leakage as the bottom of the macaron has been sealed by a layer of white chocolate. Clever, huh? ;)  

Besides the high quality of the macarons, I was also wowed by the tea served with the tea set. In addition to a wide range of Ronnefeldt tea, Rendezvous stocks almost the full range of Tea Forte iced tea! Even more amazing is that they serve the iced tea in Tea Forte's original Tea-Over-Ice brewing pitchers! I've always wanted a set because the stacked design is just so cool. Tea is first steeped hot in the upper pitcher and then chilled in the lower pitcher filled with ice cubes. I ordered an iced white ginger pear, which was sweet like honey and mildly spicy. My new found favourite from Tea Forte! :) 

In one of the corners of the lounge, there's a station where the pastry chef created made-to-order macarons (at an extra cost, about MOP65 for half a dozen). Sounded fun to me, but the piping bags didn't look very appetizing. And I couldn't help wondering how they would dispose of all those macaron shells by the end of the afternoon - the shells were obviously exposed in the air for hours and they were in such abundance that it would be impossible to sell them all. Understandably, I was a bit concerned by the freshness of my macaron tea set... I could only say that at least they tasted fresh. :0 When you dine out, you just don't want to know too much about what's going on in the kitchen...

The macaron station had brought me some uneasiness, but only BEFORE I received this beautiful gift. It's a box of chocolate and vanilla macarons, included in the room package!

And then I was happy again. Hehe... :P

SUMMING-UP

AMBIENCE: C
FOOD: A- (I would have given them an A had I not seen the macaron counter...)
SERVICE: B++ (for being efficient and so patient with some of the mannerless Mainland customers!)

OVERALL RATING: A-
OVERALL REMARK: Though Rendezvous may not be the most pleasant place for tea and I have some doubts over the freshness of their macarons, the macarons are top-notch taste-wise (and appear fresh!). The chefs have put so much thoughts into the tea set that even though it consists of virtually nothing but macarons, the great variety of flavours and creative touches has kept the tea experience exciting from the start to the end. You will find this tea set a pure bliss, especially if your genotype is XX! ;)


INFO

Rendezvous
1/F, Rua do Visconde Paco de Arcos, Macau
Macaron Love Affair Afternoon Tea: 2pm-5pm daily from August to October 2011 (right, it has ended already...)
https://sites.google.com/site/sofitelmacaupromotions/home/3rd-anniversary/i-love-macarons-room-package
*French and Asian afternoon tea sets available daily at the hotel. Visit http://www.ponte16.com.mo/?id=1395 for more info. 

Traditionally, afternoon tea is a form of luxury pastime enjoyed by the upper class. This is why afternoon tea is frequently but mistakenly referred to as "high tea". It should be noticed that despite the posh image that it conjures up, afternoon tea is actually known as "low tea". The name derives from the fact that afternoon tea is customarily served at low tables (e.g. lounge or coffee tables). High tea, on the other hand, means the filling but unsophisticated tea for the middle and lower classes after a day of hard labour. It is more or less an early dinner and is typically meaty. It is served at higher dinner tables and it is exactly the height of the table that the word "high" is referring to.

To summarize, fancy afternoon tea (usually served on tiered tray) is called low tea, whereas cheap, no-frills tea for the working class is called high tea. I know all these sound rather counter-intuitive - kinda like Iceland is greener than Greenland and Greenland is icier than Iceland :P - but make sure you remember this by heart before you declare yourself a tea lover! :)

Nonetheless, it's getting trickier to distinguish between high and low tea as the popularity of afternoon tea grows fervantly in Hong Kong. In a way it is like the situation of LV monogram bags. The famed bags were once celebrities' favourite and only lived in ordinary people's fantasies. Then some years later we began to see them less often in fashion magazines but more on MTR or buses. And now? Even the see-nai next door is carrying an LV bag to the wet market. Has our society grown so affluent that LV bags have become accessible to everyone? Of course not. We all know it's because our skilled Mainland comrades have been mass-producing counterfeit LV bags that look deceptively genuine! No matter how much you despise these fake bags, their existence seems so justifiable because the ultra-high demand for LV bags has given them plenty of room to thrive.

Afternoon tea is simply the new LV. When you see teatime pictures of your friends every time you refresh the Facebook feeds, you know you are now at the peak of the latest wave of tea fanaticism, and the day that the see-nai neighbour telling you that she is going for afternoon tea is just a blink away. Though thankfully, instead of blatant fakes, the popularization of afternoon tea has led to the rise of inexpensive but effortful imitations of traditional tea sets, which makes afternoon tea no longer a pastime exclusive to the rich. A prime example of such wallet-friendly tea sets would be Pacific Coffee's "high tea set" -

"High tea" may not be a total misnomer this time, cos at a price of $198 for 2 it certainly targets on the working class! As if the price is not low enough, there is even group-buying discount for the tea set! :0

If the above doesn't excite you, check this out -

(Photo courtesy: Vivian)

A proud creation by Credit Suisse cafeteria, which is operated by Maxim's! Apart from its out-of-place spring rolls and sesame jelly cake(?), it looks more or less like a proper tea set! You can enjoy this fusion set at the shocking price of $68 for 2. And you know what, the cafeteria is in ICC and shares the same spectacular view with Ritz-Carlton! Is this low or high tea? I can't say for sure, but I guess it doesn't really matter as long as it tastes good. There is a niche market for this kind of "not-so-high tea" (or "not-so-low tea" as you like it) in HK because we commoners need a cheap way to satistfy our perennial obsession with afternoon tea. It may well be a good alternative when we get fed up by the scandalously long queues for tea tables at Ritz-Carlton too! ;)