Afternoon tea at Llanerch Vineyard

Did you know that going out for afternoon tea is one of my favourite pastimes? If your answer is 'no', you must be new here!

After visiting Llanerch Vineyard a couple of times for Sunday lunch (read my review here), I decided I really wanted to try their afternoon tea. As my friend Sarah's 30th birthday was rapidly approaching, I had a lightbulb moment and bought her a voucher for traditional afternoon tea at Llanerch Vineyard. Two objectives in one - an excellent birthday present and an opportunity to go for afternoon tea at a new venue!

We booked our afternoon tea for a couple of weeks ago, and our table was in the Cariad bistro which is a beautifully decorated room overlooking the vineyard. We were given a menu to choose our pots of loose leaf tea, but the rest of the afternoon tea was a standard fixed menu. This suited me fine as I'm not very decisive, particularly when it comes to food! I went for the delicious Strawberry and Kiwi tea and was very excited when it came with its own egg-timer to guarantee the perfect brewing time.

After sipping on our teas for a while and catching up on all the latest news, our magnificent three-tiered spectacle arrived...

Obviously there are sandwiches on the bottom tier, but I never tend to photograph those as they're my least favourite part (no offence, sandwiches of the world). The sandwich flavours were cream cheese and cucumber, chicken and tarragon, ham and mustard, and salmon and creme fraiche. They were all lovely, but let's move on to the most exciting parts... I was hugely impressed with the second tier in particular. Scones, Welsh cakes AND banana bread! The scones came with the usual clotted cream and strawberry jam and were among the best I've ever tasted, and the Welsh cakes and banana bread were amazing too. Definitely the best and most unique second tier I've ever had. 

Moving on to the cakes on the top tier... as you can see, there were four little cakes for each person rather than one big slice. The offerings on this particular day were raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake, strawberry macaron, lemon curd meringue tart, and peanut butter and chocolate brownie. They were all exquisite and I could have eaten them all twice over! The raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake was my absolute favourite, closely followed by the strawberry macaron.

The traditional afternoon tea at Llanerch Vineyard is £16.50 per person. I think this is very reasonable considering the quality and quantity of the food, along with the beautiful setting and the excellent service. You can also pay a little more to opt for the sparkling afternoon tea or the Cariad afternoon tea if you fancy a glass of Prosecco or Champagne with your food for a special occasion.

After this excellent afternoon tea experience, I can't wait to go back to Llanerch Vineyard again. Have you ever visited the vineyard for afternoon tea? What did you think?