This is apparently the only tea farm in Canada, so as a tea lover I was very excited to visit! This…read moreplace sells over 100 types of imported teas and has a variety of their own grown teas. Since they just recently started harvesting their own teas, it's still pretty expensive for those Canadian tea options. Like way out of my price range, but maybe cool for some people! The imported teas, however, were very reasonably priced I thought, considering a lot of them are organic or rare, or simply just yummy. We sat outside in the back overlooking the meadow area. We got two bowls of matcha $5/ea, the bite size vegan/GF brownie ($3), and yummy Earl Grey Chocolate Cake ($6). It was all very tasty!!!! We both ended up buying the Izu Matcha tea from Japan-- 30g for $13, and 100g for $36 (great deal, actually!). I would recommend this place for a nice afternoon and good place to buy tea... The only downside is that they don't have a "tasting" option (wineries or breweries usually have a "flight" option to drink small quantities of a few types, but they don't do anything like that here. So to taste multiple you'd have to buy a few full small pots, 2 cups in each pot, each for $5).

My family and I have been to The Tea Farm in the lovely Cowichan Valley a few times since our move…read moreto the island a year ago and enjoy it thoroughly each and every time. Victor and Margit with their amazing staff are phenomenal hosts. Always helpful, attentive and appreciative when we visit. The tea selection is truly amazing with such a wide choice available it could be overwhelming but with their guidance we are always happy with our choices. Their dessert menu offers delightful treats with gluten free options as well. I am partial to the Earl Grey Chocolate Cake...it is so yummy. It is a Zen like experience especially on a lovely day as we sit overlooking a meadow, valley, the tea leaves growing on the hill and the figs and raspberries too. I highly recommend the experience....slow down and enjoy the moment with loved ones at this hidden gem in the valley.

I had a great experience. The sandwiches and sweets were memorable! The teas were delicious. It was…read morenice to be able to try different teas. We even bought a couple of bags of tea. Service and ambiance was wonderful!

The staff were very friendly, and generally service was good…read more The interior is well decorated, but there's no hiding the fact that it's on a busy street, making it one of the tea rooms with the least interesting views. Good selection of tea and it was fine. They seemed average, not bad, but don't really stand out either. I appreciated that they had a variety of choices for food including a gluten-free option. The quality of food was again okay. Nothing was bad, but nothing was great either. They toast the bread for the sandwiches is I personally don't like because by the time you get to it, it's cooled down, so it's a little hard without being freshly toasted. It's also a bit messy to eat open faced sandwiches that have a fair amount of toppings. Afternoon tea is not supposed to be messy. Overall, not bad, but also there are better places.

I have never had tea like this before and I felt like I had to come in proper attire but they do…read morenot scrounge you in your leggings and fleece sweater at all! The place is super cute. It's a old Victorian style house that has been turned into a tea party spot. Our server Keira was super patient and sweet. We ordered the afternoon tea for two. I opted for the peach tea and it was so tummy satisfying as it was a cold day too. It hit the spot! We got our tower of decadent sweet and salty treats. My favorite was the beef pot pie and the potato mash. That paired very well together. As far as sweets, the tart and chocolate cake were delish! Make sure to come with an empty tummy. We were not able to finish half of the goodies we were served but you can always take it to go.

At the Pendry Tea House, one does not merely have afternoon tea; one boards a doomed vessel,…read morecrosses the boundary of good sense, and descends, Virgil-less and increasingly dehydrated, into a minor but memorable circle of Dante's Inferno. More specifically, the experience recalls Canto XXVI, when Dante encounters Odysseus in Hell: the great voyager whose final journey is not wisdom, but overconfidence, misdirection, and wreckage. Pendry offered much the same voyage, except the sea was tannic tea, the ship was a sun-blasted room without air conditioning, and the wreckage cost 167 Canadian dollars. The setting was the first sign that we had passed through the gates. Rather than being seated in a calm or elegant space, everyone seemed shoved into the same glaring, sunlit room, where the lack of air conditioning turned afternoon tea into a slow roast. It was less refined Victoria tea service and more waiting room in the eighth circle: hot, crowded, and airless. If Dante had needed a modern architectural metaphor for Hell, this room would have done nicely. Then came the vegetarian meal, each course another island on the journey, each landing bleaker than the last. The bread was dried past redemption, as if abandoned on shore long before we arrived. The scones were burnt in a way that suggested not rustic charm, but open hostility. The cucumber sandwiches were the most haunting stop of all: barely two slices of cucumber, no discernible spread, and all the lushness of a moral allegory about scarcity. As for the vegan option, it was so dry that the Sahara might have sent a cease-and-desist for reputational damage. With each bite, another member of the culinary crew seemed to be left behind. The tea itself was somehow worse, which is especially impressive at a tea house. Silk Road should strongly consider pulling any association they have with this establishment, because the staff appeared not to know the steep times for the teas on their own menu. At a tea house, steeping guidance is not ornamental; it is the rudder. Without it, the whole voyage is already lost. The jasmine green tea tasted less like jasmine flowers and more like someone had steeped the dirt from beneath a jasmine bush. The tannic overload was so severe that I had to order a Coke simply to exorcise the taste from my mouth. It was the kind of bitterness Dante might have reserved for fraudulent counselors: those who know the language of refinement but use it to lead others into suffering. The masala chai, meanwhile, was so weak that I do not think even someone with IBS would have found it threatening, though perhaps that is too generous, because visually it resembled the brown water left behind by data farms in AOC's mason jar. The rich golden color one expects from chai was nowhere to be found. To their credit, they did swap it for a breakfast blend, but that tea, too, arrived with no instructions, no steeping guidance, and no follow-up. No one came by to ask whether the teas were good. We had to inquire ourselves. The service completed the allegory. When the trays of pastries were brought to the table, they were not presented so much as dumped upon us, as if they were refuse--which, surprisingly, they largely were. No one explained what anything was. At other tea services in Victoria, such as Butchart Gardens, there is pride in presentation. There, the staff arrived equipped with a baton and explained each item with care and ceremony. Here, our questions seemed to be treated as trespass, as if curiosity itself had violated house rules. We were not guests being guided through a service. We were passengers who had made the mistake of asking the captain where exactly he was taking us. The finale was fittingly infernal. After removing the first of two trays, the staff disappeared for over thirty minutes and only returned with the bill after being prompted. For two people, an 18% gratuity had already been included, which perhaps explains the total absence of incentive to provide anything resembling attentive service. Like Odysseus urging his crew onward while knowing only his own ambition mattered, the house had already secured its reward. The rest of us could drift. Hell may have no fury like that of a woman scorned, but should you wish to experience the particular fury of being packed into a hot, sunlit room without air conditioning, then served dried bread, burnt scones, cucumber sandwiches without dignity, tea brewed beyond recognition, and service conducted as though hospitality were an imposition, by all means book a table at the Pendry Tea House. At 167 Canadian dollars, it is less an afternoon tea than a guided descent: a voyage past taste, past comfort, and past the last known boundary of hospitality.

Really a 3.5 but rounding up for small business. It's clear the owner of really cares about Matcha,…read morebut the interior of the place was a little mismatched. I went in because I wanted Matcha soft serve. The soft serve Matcha was both subtle in flavor and texture. My sister got a macaron, and she's enjoyed it. We were there along with a food tour group so we got to overhear a little bit about the owners journey and into Matcha and you can tell she sells a lot of different specialty items so my sister bought a pretty expensive tin of Matcha. Overall, really friendly staff and there were people who were working there so it's clearly a very community driven spot.

Found this little spot while exploring Victoria on our cruise port day, and I'm so glad I did! The…read moremenu had so many tempting options, but I went with the lychee matcha lemonade for something refreshing and wow, it was the right choice. Hands down the best matcha lemonade I've ever had, it was delicious. The staff were kind, service was quick, and the place was cute. I wish I could go back to try more of their matcha drinks. Definitely a gem worth visiting.

Beautiful, lush gardens waiting for you to stroll through them. Relaxing and quiet despite being…read moreamongst a busy neighborhood. The tea house was amazing! Nicely set up with the finest English dishes and excellent hot teas. A perfect selection of afternoon tea scrummies, calm and peaceful. A love story behind the property told nicely by the servers as you sip. Highly suggest you try this if you're not in the mood for the main garden attraction offered in town! Gorgeous.

The gardens were fantastic! Well maintained with close in trails that give it a very close in…read moresecret garden feel. There is also a trail suitable for wheelchairs and other assistive devices. This is not a really large garden, but very well designed and laid out. The variety of species is fantastic and the flowering blossoms are everywhere. The tea itself is a different story as I'm a bit of a tea snob. There are no menus or choices for sandwiches or type of tea. I found the tea sandwiches to be dry and stale bread. Being a tea snob, I also prefer private seatings instead of 8 strangers at a table all reaching into the same tower of sandwiches for choices you didn't get to make. Non Europeans just don't understand the finer points of tea. This 'European seating' of strangers sharing a table works for western ideas of pubs, not for an afternoon tea. Five stars for the garden. 2 stars for the stale sandwiches and tepid unknown tea with no cozies or leaves strainers or spoons or choices...

A well established staple, I knew I had to have tea here on my recent trip to Victoria. The hotel…read moreis an architectural gem, and and even though the tea is in a lobby, it still achieves a polished feel. The tea selection is compelling and my choice, the rose congou emperor, was stellar. The sandwhiches and pastries were all quite high quality. However, where the tea really raises the bar is in the service itself. Our server was friendly, welcoming, and informative. It really lent an extra level of special to the whole experience.

Good experience to try one time but I don't see myself doing it again. This is the iconic tourist…read moreactivity to do in Victoria - afternoon tea at the Fairmont Empress. It can be a bit spendy as it starts at CA$109 per person before tax and tip - at least for me I allocated the entire $100 USD dining credit with the Amex fine hotels and resorts benefit on this. Reservations are almost mandatory for weekend and I'm glad I made one just in case, although it was rather risky due to the 48 hour cancellation policy if I fly in the morning of, but it worked out. They're strict on time - I made a 12pm reservation and they refused to seat me even though it was not busy at all at 11am opening and made me wait until exactly 12pm. A bit harsh when I contacted the hotel and made a note to the restaurant for my arrival details. I got the traditional afternoon tea for 1 so just tea and 3 tiers of scones, small bites, and desserts. It was quite nice of them to refill the entire tier of savory small bites even though I only requested 3, so that was a nice touch that somewhat made up the poor first impression. You can request more of certain items for free, just don't abuse the system basically The food with the 1 tier refill was more than enough food for me - the service was decent as they checked up on me during the meal. I nicely asked for the tea gift box that is only reserved for anniversaries and they accommodated, but this will almost unlikely happen in many situations so your mileage may vary. I did wait 20 minutes for the gift box as it wasn't a priority for them, so do what you will to see if it is worth the time (I at least was not in a rush)

I brought my husband here for his first time ever having a traditional tea experience…read more Unfortunately, at the time we had a bit of a crisis that was happening at home and it was hard for us to sit and just enjoy our meal because we were dealing with a crisis, however, the server was so sweet and genuine and understanding about us being somewhat distracted. Despite our side quest, my husband still told me he enjoyed every second of that tea lunch and had a great time. They do a really good job about decorating it making it feel very authentic, and the tea was delicious and they really went above and beyond to explain everything that we were receiving. I would definitely go back!

piggy and paisley is a small, charming local café in james bay that fits really naturally into the…read moreneighbourhood. it's located just across from thrifty foods and a short walk from victoria's inner harbour. james bay itself feels quite different from downtown. while the core of victoria is busy with tourists, government buildings, and constant movement around the harbour, james bay feels more residential and relaxed, with tree lined streets, older homes, independent shops, and a steady local rhythm. i stopped in for a matcha latte with oat milk and sat by the bay window. it's an easy place to slow down for a bit and watch the neighbourhood go by. natural light fills the space, softening the pink tones and cozy interior, and there's a quiet, comfortable hum of conversation in the background. during my visit, a few people were catching up over tea, others were working on laptops, and some were simply enjoying coffee and pastries. it has a very unhurried feel to it, like people naturally settle in. afternoon tea is available but needs to be booked in advance. there are also small curated displays throughout the café with teas, gifts, and artisan items available for purchase. it feels thoughtfully selected and woven into the space rather than presented as a separate shop, which adds to the overall charm without distracting from the café experience. what stands out most is the atmosphere. it feels genuinely local. regulars come in and out, conversations happen easily, and even as a visitor you feel comfortable settling into the space. it feels more like a neighbourhood café that naturally belongs where it is. if you're in victoria, it's worth stepping away from the inner harbour and downtown for a bit. wandering into james bay and spending time at piggy and paisley gives you a quieter, more local side of the city that many visitors miss, and it's a nice place to slow down for a while.

You seat yourself, order at the till, and then they bring your order out to you…read more This cute tea cafe is located on the Government House property in the Cary Castle Mews. The prices are very affordable. I ordered the Season Berry Eaton Mess, which is gluten free. It composed of meringue, lemon curd, Chantilly cream. It was light, delicious, and refreshing. I would love to come back and try their sandwiches and other pastries. Please note that this tea house doesn't serve high tea.