Woburn Coffee House, Woburn, Bedfordshire. (Autumn Afternoon Tea)

Cost – £29.95 (October 2018)

Parking and Access – There is a reasonable amount of parking in the village of Woburn, some of which is quite close to the Coffee House. There is also a reasonably large public car park behind the Woburn Hotel, accessed from the road leading through the park. There are some cobbles to get over on the pavement area. The Woburn Coffee House has steps to access the toilets, lounge area and the conservatory.

Background – This was our fourth visit to the Woburn Coffee House for Afternoon Tea (we still have the winter menu to go!!).

Contents – Spinach, garlic and cheddar tartlet, salmon in choux bun with lemon cream cheese, spinach blini topped with crab and chervil pate, smoked pigeon and apple salad, goat’s cheese and golden beetroot crostini, pork, mushroom and tarragon sausage roll. Rum and raisin, almond scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream. Pear, salted caramel and frangipane tart, apple and cassis gateau with ginger shortbread, Frangelico mousse, passion fruit topped with white chocolate and pistachio tuille, gingerbread macha tea truffle. Pot of tea of your choice.

Options Available – There are vegetarian options available for all non-vegetarian items.

Comments – We booked our Tea at the Woburn Coffee House some time ahead as it gets booked up quickly. However, we somehow managed to arrive half an hour too early for our booking! As our table wasn’t ready, we were given the choice of waiting in the very pleasant lounge area of the restaurant, or going away and returning later. We decided to go and have a wonder around Woburn until the correct time.

When we returned, we were seated in the conservatory area at the back of the building.

We were then each given a menu to choose our drinks from. We chose English Breakfast tea for two of us plus Darjeeling for one. The final person asked for a glass of milk instead. We also ordered a jug of homemade lemonade and a glass of raspberry prosecco. We asked for the teas to come when we started our scones.

The table was beautifully laid with matching tablecloth and napkins and pretty matching china.

The lemonade arrived quickly in a glass jug. It was sparkling, cool and was delicious.

The prosecco arrived at the same time,

as did the milk.

The Afternoon Tea arrived shortly after on the usual two five-layer brass cake stands.

All of the items in our Tea were freshly made, and were really delicious. One thing we particularly enjoy about the Woburn Coffee House is the interesting and unusual items the chefs come up with for their Teas using seasonal produce.

We rarely find that anything we don’t like and are always keen to try everything, even when there are ingredients that we are not keen on.

For example, the spinach blini topped with crab and chervil pate with Asian pear salsa. I am not keen on spinach and have had some dodgy experiences with crab, but was happy to try the blini and, of course, it was delicious!

Of the savoury items included on this occasion, my favourite was the sausage roll.

My least favourite was the duck salad as the duck was a bit too smoky for me, so that the smokiness obscured the other flavours.

Whilst we were eating the savoury items, we were each offered a cheese and chive scone with butter and kiwi and pepper jam, as we have been when we have visited before. It was delicious as usual. In fact, this is one of my favourite items!

Our teas arrived as we finished our savoury items. We had a large china teapot of tea between two of us and a smaller one for the Darjeeling order. The tea was made with tea bags.

The rum and raisin, almond scones were interesting but I did not get much of a rum flavour coming through. They were still very tasty though. There was enough homemade strawberry jam and, at last, just about enough clotted cream. We did ask for, and receive some extra cream still, and also some butter for our non-cream eater.