White Heather Tea Room is the highest rated Afternoon Tea in Victoria and came highly recommended…read moreon social media. We decided to visit for the special meal of our recent trip to Victoria, making a reservation at opening on a Thursday morning. It turns out in the off season a reservation isn't necessary - it never got too full during our 2 hours lounging around and slowly nibbling on food and sipping on tea.
The staff are exceptionally pleasant and attentive, constantly refilling teapots and checking on customers. I especially love that when they bring out the tiered tray, they automatically ask for a phone to take a photo!
Signature Muckle Tea ($66 CAD per person) -
This firstly comes with three tea choices. Given how Brits traditionally drink tea (e.g. with a lot of sugar and cream), we were a bit skeptical with how this afternoon tea would work. We wanted three vastly different types of non-blended teas (ideally a selection of green, black, white, oolong, and puerh). White Heather does serve the first three types of tea. We figured black teas would be safest given brewing temperatures and times.
Pai Mu Tan - Very, very subtle flavor. In fact I would say that even after several minutes of brew time, it only tastes like boiled water with slight astringency. But then after another couple of minutes becomes exceptionally astringent and very difficult to drink. A very finicky tea that probably isn't a good choice for afternoon tea.
Orange Pekoe - Strong bold malty flavor without much in terms of fruitiness. Does become quite astringent as it becomes more overbrewed, but it takes a while before getting to that point (we also lifted the tea bags as much as possible out of the water to prevent overbrewing in the first place)
Sencha - Exceptionally grassy fragrance making it very pleasant to drink. It holds up very well and never becomes too astringent or unpleasant. Surprising given how bitter it gets at home when I brew it at too high temperatures or for too long. Second brew doesn't give much flavor though.
Given how many bites came on the three layer tower, I'll only be giving sparknotes rather than my usual full analysis. The waitress recommended eating from bottom tier up.
Plain Scone + Raisin Scone - Both exceptionally fluffy and tender, easy to split in half. Served nice and warm with cream, lemon curd, and berry jam.
Cheese Croustades - Interestingly different colors on the shell, one being much darker than the other. Both tastes and textures are the same though, being flaky but very hard and almost crunchy. Inside is a cheese mixture, tasting mostly of cheddar with mayo (similar to pimento cheese sans pimento). Some slivers of almonds on top.
Mini Quiche - Really soft and buttery tart filled with sun dried tomato and topped with red bell pepper and what seems to be ricotta cheese, although given it's quiche is probably egg.
Ham Pinwheel - Simple ham salad flecked with celery, red bell pepper, and pickles on flattened and rolled up sandwich bread. Not salty.
Egg Salad Pinwheel - Similar to above, but with egg salad and pimento stuffed olives. The olive gives a welcome hit of salinity.
Salmon Sconewich - Really sweet, possibly brown sugar glazed smoked salmon in a somewhat cheesy herbaly scone, tender and spread with cream cheese. Too sweet for a savory dish in my opinion, even with the stuffed olive on top.
Cucumber Sandwich - Double decker sandwich, thinly sliced cucumber, tangy cream cheese spread on rye. Soft and fluffy, cucumber almost melts in the mouth.
Chocolate Mousse - Delightfully rich and thick, definitely a high quality chocolate mouse given the texture and depth of chocolate flavor, graced with half a raspberry.
At this point I was so stuffed that I couldn't eat another bite. I left the rest of the desserts for later (ended up eating them for dinner).
Macaron - Really sweet and raspberry fruity, super soft, fingers easily break the surface with a light touch. Raspberry jam in the center of an Earl Grey cream, very sweet so my first few bites I couldn't get the bergamot flavor, but it comes out eating the frosting in isolation.
Carrot Cake - Super dense, moist crumb with plenty of carrot flavor and some crushed walnut to break things up. Not too sweet. Tangy whipped cream cheese topping, light not heavy.
Caramel Mini Cupcake - Denser bake but moist crumb, tastes more like vanilla than caramel to me. The cream on top perhaps has a hint of caramel? At least, it doesn't seem to be straight sugar.
Lemon Tart - Super soft pastry shell with the same lemon curd as with the scones, then topped with cream.
Scottish Shortbread - Very crumbly and buttery sweet dessert. Rich and delicious.
I'm at the character limit so I'll just say this - White Heather gives a fantastic Afternoon Tea experience. It's a splurge that I certainly think was worth taking.
Bathrooms - Two unisex rooms
