Serene Afternoon Tea in the Square Mile

Tea at the glitzy Ritz.  Tea at discreet Brown’s.  Tea at classy Fortnum and Mason.

They all appeal to ladies who sip Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong in the lap of luxury in London.

And now there’s a new kid on the block for those seeking a treat of an afternoon tea in the capital.  Of course, with all the trimmings of dainty sandwiches, naughty cream cakes and crumbly scones, not to mention a miniscule Amuse-Bouche.

What’s particularly on trend is the setting: a botanical escape in the heart of London at the new Pan Pacific hotel in Bishopsgate.  It’s just round the corner from Liverpool Street station and a whistle away from the frenetic commuter traffic of road, rail and Tube.

So prepare to b_r_e_a_t_h_e  as you enter the glassy portals of the three year old five-star hotel, and glide up the curving marble staircase into the serene garden setting of the Maxwell Room.  Here my  companion – more of her later – and I are escorted by unhurried staff into a very green oasis of tranquillity and calm.

Very green.  Thanks to trailing specimens of a vertical garden (disappointingly artificial) and many potted plants on tables and window sills (reassuringly real).  The room is light, airy and with great views of glittering skyscrapers dwarfing St. Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, completed in 1729 on the site of the original Saxon church. It survived the Great Fire of London unscathed, lost only one window during the Second World War Blitz but needed extensive restoration after damage from the IRA Bishopsgate bomb in 1993. Its burial grounds have been converted into a public garden, offering another green sanctuary.

Now for tea. We are presented with a black hinged box of 10 dainty little glass pots of tea leaves and botanical infusions for us to sniff, savour and select.

After much inhaling,  companion Joana opts for Milk Oolong from China. With notes of honey and peach it is sweet, smooth and creamy so lives up to its name.  As I don’t take milk or sugar I decline.

The most expensive, demanding an £8 supplement, is Oriental Beauty, from Taiwan where insects are encouraged (how? we wonder) to feed on the leaves as their bites kickstart oxidation.

By far the prettiest was Persian Rose, which could have doubled for a bridesmaid’s posy.

I’m going for a scary sounding Silver Needle, a white tea from China’s Fujian Province, its silver leaf buds plucked in spring to dry naturally in the sun. It’s pale yellow, clean, pure and delicately tasting of melon and honey.  We both order second pots as our brews are so refreshing, and vital to counteract what’s on our plates during the next two blissful hours.

This is a reunion of two strangers who haven’t set eyes on each other for 35 years.  One was a baby then.  I was national newspaper woman’s editor on a foreign assignment.  It could have awkward, uncomfortable, with stuttering small talk as we filled in the yawning gap of decades.

With no small thanks to this tea treat our meeting went as smoothly as the service with staff, including attentive Neapolitan waiter Antonio, keen to be of service.

Joana summed up our teatime: “A beautiful experience, amazing tea selection and cakes, calming setting to enjoy time with a friend, wonderful, professional people work there.  I’d take my mum and dad _ it’s just as good as the Ritz.  You can just relax and enjoy _ a perfect place for taking someone for a special occasion.”

Ours was that special occasion.

We were duly amused by the Amuse-Bouche of roasted butternut squash soup.  Then followed our savouries that included an Isle of Mull cheddar tart, sandwiches of smoked salmon on rye, chunky Wiltshire ham and mustard and the must-have cucumber and cream cheese on white.

The afternoon tea sweet delicacies were straight out of one of those TV cookery challenges: honey pomegranate mousse; passion fruit orange tart; tarragon apricot bavarois and, according to the calorie count I’ve only just discovered, the naughtiest of them all _ chocolate hazelnut layer cake at 258!

We’d saved our favourite to last, a neatly wrapped bundle of warm scones, two plain and two with mixed peel and candied ginger.  We could have fallen out over the correct method to prepare.  Joana went for the Cornish strawberry jam first then clotted cream. I favoured Devon’s way of cream spread under a dollop of orange marmalade. 

We were too sugar-rushed to argue as we left with a pedigree doggy box of our very few leftovers, a little illustrated map of Secret Gardens of the Square Mile and a take-away packet of seeds to plant at home.

Somehow we’ll need to do more gardening than that to counter balance our deliciously calorific afternoon tea.

• The afternoon tea is priced at £68 per person, with champagne upgrades available from £21-£26 a glass. Pan Pacific Hotel, 80 Houndsditch, City of London EC3A 7AB