1837 TWG Tea Pavilion

1837 TWG Tea is indeed a tea lover’s heaven. Just look at their tea menu, for goodness sake! There seem to be hundreds of choices. To choose one from the tea menu will take anybody more than a few minutes. The waiters/waitresses are ready to advise and bring any tea to your table for you to sniff. Some of the teas have codes after their names e.g. FTGFOP = Finest Tea Golden Flower Orange Pekoe. Dine there a few times and you’ll soon get the hang of it. The TWG Salon is an elegant outlet and I could almost imagine I was in London or Paris. I say “almost”! No, it’s not the next best thing to having tea at Dorchester Hotel because nothing comes close to that (been there, done that!).

I asked for an Orange Pekoe so the waiter pointed me to 2 choices, one of them is a higher grade than the other even though they are both priced at RM18. I chose the higher grade Maloom Tea from Nepal. From the tea set menu, you can choose teas priced at RM18. You can also choose any teas that cost more than RM18 but have to pay a supplement.

There are 3 tea set menus and it starts from 1837 priced at RM26.50. For that, you will get a pot of tea and a choice of 2 scones or muffins served with tea jelly and whipped cream. If you are a light eater, go for that but what’s tea without sandwiches. eh?

Then there’s the Chic Set Menu priced at RM46. You get a pot of tea, 2 scones or muffins served with tea jelly and whipped cream or a patisserie from their trolley and a petite selection of 3 finger sandwiches from the following 3 sets:-

Vegetarian set

Cucumber with cream cheese infused with Earl Grey Fortune, Roma Tomato and Moroccan Mint Tea infused sauce, Green asparagus and whipped cream sprinkled with chives.

Royal set

Prawn with Silver Moon Tea infused cream, Smoked salmon with mascarpone and chives, Roma tomato and Moroccan mint tea infused sauce.

Imperial set

Foie gras. Chicken with Comptoir des Indes Tea infused with crème fraîche, Cucumber with cream cheese infused Earl Grey Fortune.

The 3rd set menu is the Fortune Set priced at RM55. You get the pot of tea, choice of 2 scones/muffins, a choice of 3 macarons and a choice of warm toasted sandwich from the list below:-

TWG Tea Croque Monsieur

Warm toasted sandwich with French Gruyère Cheese and turkey ham served with a delicate green salad and house vinaigrette.

TWG Tea Croque Provence

Vegetarian warm toasted sandwich with Gruyère Cheese garnished with tomatoes and asparagus served with a delicate green salad tossed in green vinaigrette.

TWG Tea Croque Imperial

Warm toasted sandwich with Gruyère Cheese and smoked salmon served with a delicate green salad tossed in green vinaigrette.

We chose the Royal Set and Imperial Set from the Chic Menu.

Maloom Tea

Scones

Tea jelly and whipped cream

Finger sandwiches

Firstly, the tea comes in a big pot. The waiter pours it out immediately. I could tell immediately that the tea was weak. I don’t even have to taste it. It looked so unopaque that I knew how weak it was going to taste. I didn’t open the cover of the pot to check how much tea leaves it contained, that would have been so disrespectful to my host but that’s what I really wanted to do. With the addition of milk, the tea tasted even more weak. If there’s one thing that upsets me, it’s weak tea and moreover tea priced at RM18 per pot should be stronger than what was served to me!

The scones were all right, not the best I’ve tasted but at least they weren’t hard and were still warm. Went quite nicely with the sweet tea jelly and whipped cream. This is the first time I’ve tasted tea jelly, not something I’d miss. Would have preferred butter but perhaps tea jelly is cheaper than butter nowadays.

The finger sandwiches were really small and nothing special. Even with my limited cooking skills, I think I could have pulled off better tasting sandwiches. I think I’ll stick to high teas at hotels and goreng pisang and teh tarik at the roadside stall, more satisfaction there, not to mention much more filling. I should mention though that service was first class as the waitress checked on us half-way through our tea and asked if everything was all right.