Kat Kuan

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Afternoon Tea at Fortnum & Mason in London

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I got to spend my birthday in London on our honeymoon, and the ONE thing I wanted to do was have Afternoon High Tea at the famed Fortnum & Mason.

If you aren’t familiar, Fortnum & Mason is the Queen’s favorite grocer – it’s an upscale grocery / department store with fancy teas, cookies, and many other beautiful things. You walk in and want it all!

They are a couple of locations in London, but their 300-year-old flagship store in Picadilly is where the magic is.

On the top floor is The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, where they serve their afternoon tea complete with cakes, sandwiches, scones, and of course, tea!

Make a Reservation

First of all, to get in, you need to make a reservation. As soon as you know you’ll be in London and want to go, you should book a table. It was all full when we checked, and I was so sad! But luckily a couple spots opened up that morning when they opened for business. We immediately snagged one of those tables using OpenTable. Score!

The Store

When you arrive at the store, wow, it is a sight to see! It looks majestic even from the outside. Since it was near Christmastime when we went, it was also beautifully decorated for the holiday season.

Since the tea salon is on the top floor, you go up these red carpeted staircases from one amazing floor to another until you get to the top.

The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon

Once you arrive to the salon, you walk into this big open space with comfortable seating in the waiting area and a counter to check in. You feel like a VIP walking in here!

Even a guy playing piano!
To the left, people enjoying their tea.

We waited for our table to be ready and then got graciously seated with menus. The service is impeccable and all the staff is so polite.

So excited!

From the menu, you can choose different sets: Afternoon Tea, Savory Afternoon Tea, Vegetarian, or High Tea. I chose the classic Afternoon Tea, which comes with the all the below items.

If you come with someone, I recommend one person getting Afternoon Tea and the other person getting Savory so that you can try each other’s. The food and tea are unlimited!

Next you choose a tea flavor from their extensive menu. I’ve never seen so many tea options in my life!

They have all different types of teas (black or green) and special blends that are named after royal occasions like the Queen’s Jubilee or Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Royal Wedding!

My tea arrives! They pour it into this silver tea strainer that looks like it has fish fins, and it catches all the loose tea leaves. Then you put it into the container on the left and enjoy your tea.

It looks like ordinary tea but boy, it tastes so delicate and rich.

Then our food came. It’s hard to see the other person with the 3-tier cake stands on the table, ha!

This is the top layer of tiny cakes. They were so delicately made and very rich, but not too sweet. Each was better than the next!

Middle tier. The scones. One is plain and one has fruit in it. Very dense and filling. There are different spreads and jam you can eat with them. The clotted cream was amazing!

Sandwiches – my favorite part! They were so good. We asked for refills on these!

Vince’s savory tea set came with this egg thing called “Oeuf Drumkilbo” with lobster in it. It was impeccable. Got seconds of this too.

Pretty soon, I was feeling incredibly full. From tiny sandwiches, how is that possible??

With Vince’s savory tea option, you can also choose a slice of cake from the cart afterwards. We couldn’t even imagine eating anymore, so we packed it home.

They pack it for you in this beautiful to-go box. It’s like a gift!

Okay also the bathroom is really nice! They have this pomegranate rose hand soap that smells magnificent. You can conveniently buy it downstairs from their store, but sadly it was closed by the time we were done eating.

So that was our high tea experience in London! It did not disappoint! Lots of people were celebrating their birthdays there too and the waiters would go around singing for them.

His first time having afternoon tea. I think he liked it!
I was a happy birthday girl!

Later in our trip, we visited the Fortnum & Mason store at St. Pancras and bought some gifts to take home like shortbread and tea bags. We ended up getting this assorted set of 120 tea bags, so we could take a little bit of London home with us! 😉

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I Almost Didn’t Go On a Honeymoon

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This year, Vince and I got married! Wedding planning was a process, to say the least. And because the wedding took up so much time and a big chunk of change, we were thinking about delaying our honeymoon. We were going to save up money to do a big trip later and do a small trip right after the wedding. We considered going somewhere nearby in California – nothing that we were too excited about but it was financially smart.

That was the plan until I was having dinner with some college friends (shoutout to Tina and Wendi). They have been married for awhile already. They asked why we weren’t doing our honeymoon yet and then strongly encouraged us to reconsider.

One of the chief reasons being that if we didn’t go now, we may never plan to go. And that life would catch up with us after the wedding, and we wouldn’t be able to get back to that special moment of being newlyweds.

Another reason we hesitated to go was work. We both had work and it wasn’t the exact opportune time to take a long vacation.

Now the nuances will be different for every couple and will depend on your financial situation.

But here’s the thing that my friends helped me see: there will never be the perfect time to take a vacation. And in your mind, you will always come up with reasons not to go, whether it’s money, time, or work schedule.

They weren’t suggesting it had to be big or expensive or even a long vacation. But they recommended a honeymoon for us two to celebrate and spend some quality time together.

After thinking about it long and hard, I allowed myself to think about “What if we went on an actual honeymoon?” and “What if we went on a trip to a place we had always dreamed of going to?” It felt so weird to allow myself to imagine that type of grand possibility. And then the barriers to make it actually happen started to fall.

We started to figure out how we could make our work schedules work. We started to figure out how we could afford to go on the trip – including using a bunch of free travel points from our credit cards. The more we started seriously considering and planning for it, the more excited we both got. It became something we both really looked forward to – especially when things in the wedding planning process got stressful.

So in the end, we did go on a honeymoon. It was 2 weeks in Europe – Paris, Barcelona, Rome, and London. We went from not having any honeymoon plans to a full-blown European vacation. And yes it was an investment, but it created the most priceless memories as we started our new life together.

Seeing the Mona Lisa
Croissants in Paris

Being over there, it was breathtaking how beautiful the sights and cities were. It was inspiring, refreshing, and just created so much joy. It was time for him and I to just be with each other without outside distractions. We woke up each day and indulged in life, eating and doing whatever our hearts desired. There are no regrets in going, and I am so grateful for my friends who encouraged us to go.

So as the holidays are approaching, this is my message for you.

It is tempting to keep working through the holidays, to catch up on what hasn’t been finished yet, and try to cram in some more to-do list items before the end of the year. But like my business coach said, it’s important to take those breaks during the year – to go on vacation and recharge, especially when everyone else is on vacation.

So take a break. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or long, but step back from your crazy everyday life and do something for you. Do something that fills you up with so much joy because that joy is something we can forget to prioritize in our busy days. And those far off dreams we always wished to experience one day can actually be a lot closer than we think. Jump while you have the chance. Live when you still have a breath.