Ahhh!  I’m so excited!  We finally got to have High Tea~  I’ve had Secret Garden Tea Company on my list of places I wanted to try for a long time!  And we finally got to go!

The outside of the store is super cute.  Since the store is in the Kerrisdale area, it resonates that older town vibe from the neighbourhood!  It was hard to spot the store driving past, but it’s THERE!!!  Go try it out!  A hint on the parking….try the smaller streets in the back because they are free, but if you can’t find anything then the parking lots right across from Secret Garden is cheaper than the meter parking by the street.

After a long day, it was great to walk into the store and be greeted by  the smell of heavenly teas and pastries.  We got a reservation and was seated in a table next to the front windows.  We had a perfect view of the street and people walking by.  There were flowers and greenery planted next to the windows so it really did feel like a garden!  I love the book Secret Garden as a child and the interior of the restaurant brought me back to my little dreams as a baby panda~

High Tea is only available at certain times throughout the day.  Reservations can be made for: 12pm, 2:15pm and 4:30pm, every day of the week, and cost $25.95 for adults and $16.95 for children (8 and under).  They have different assortments of pastries for children…I think.  It was really cute watching a couple of little girls holding their teddy bears and having high tea with their mothers.  It was the sweetest thing!  But don’t get the wrong message because there were lots of men eating here as well~

They served the tea in a classic tea set.  The front of the store was the dining area and the inside of the store is where they have pastries and teas for sale to take home.

And here is my tea pot!!!!  I tried the Angel’s Dream which has maple and wild blackberry.  I chose this because it was recommended by the waitress and I have always loved maple.

Rockia had the Secret Garden’s Secret which is a bestseller here (according to the waitress).

The Secret Garden’s Secret has vanilla and a secret sweet ingredient and is fruity.

Our teas were served with milk and sugar.  I added the milk and only a little bit of sugar because the maple was already flavourful enough and didn’t need sugar.  I really enjoyed this because the tea not only smelled good but it tasted good too.  Each individual tea had its own combination of flavours.  I’ve tried lots of teas that might smell good, but has no flavour to it at all.

And here is the three tiered platter!!!  It all looked so cute!!!  But it took me awhile to figure out that we had to eat these little things with our fingers!  We had plates but there were no forks.  Haha!  I guess it’s because they are finger food.  See the greenery behind the windows?  It was beautiful.

There were so many assortments!  The waitress asked whether it was our first visit and then she introduced each pastry to us individually.

The bottom tier with the finger sandwiches was definitely our favourite.  My favorite was beef with portobello mushroom.  The butter biscuit that the toppings came on was so buttery and flavorful.  The portobello mushroom was amazing because it has a very intense flavour by itself already.

My second favourite was the curried shrimp croissant.

The croissant was light and flurry.  The shrimp was fresh, but I could hardly taste any curry…(?)  This was still very good.

This next one is the egg salad pin wheel. This is a highly recommended one.  But we had diverse opinions about this.  The egg was super soft and blended with the bread completely in our mouths.  However, I found that it was a bit flavourless because the egg didn’t have any additional taste to it.  Rockia loves eggs and found this pin wheel to be very good.  Maybe if they added something more to the eggs it would  add a bit more flavour to it…..

On to the second tier!!!!

There is a cranberry and white cheesecake.  This was pretty average and tasted like a regular piece of cake.  I didn’t even know it was white cheesecake…..maybe it’s because my vision of cheesecake is a bit different.

This is the apricot swirl. I really enjoyed this one.  The top was coated with sugar, but it wasn’t super sweet.  The inside was light and fluffy.

It was served with strawberry jam and devonshire cream. The apricot swirl by itself was good, but adding the devonshire cream and jam made it extra yummy.  The devonshire cream was super fluffy and light.  I recommend mixing the jam and devonshire cream together.

Finally, on to the third tier! We were already pretty full after the second~~

The lemon tart is another highly recommended pastry at Secret Garden.  I loved the lemon taste because it was a bit sour and not overly sweet.  The outer pastry was thick and super buttery.  However, I thought the lemon tart was only average and preferred the mango lime mousse on green tea short bread more.

And here is the mango lime mousse on green tea short bread!  The name was super long!  This was my favourite out of all those on tier three.

There was half a raspberry and a piece of dried mango on top.  The mango lime mousse was a great combination because it was sweet from the mango and also had the freshness of the lime.

The last one was the chocolate mousse macaroon.  We were really disappointed with this one because it was wayyyyyy too sweet.  We couldn’t even finish one piece.  The chocolate was intense with sweetness and actually made my teeth hurt.  It was super pretty and cute….but it wasn’t for our palettes.

They refilled the water in our tea pots and we ended up having many cups of tea.  We couldn’t finish everything and took them home in a take out box.  I loved the environment so much that I really didn’t want to leave my comfy seat (and pillows).

The total came to $54.50 for two people.  I think the atmosphere at Secret Garden was amazing with the flowers and the warm and comfortable setting.  The service was prompt and super friendly.  The tea was very flavourful and they had lots of variety.  The two pots were very different from each other and each had its unique tastes.  As for the pastries, some were very good whereas others were not for our tastes.  Overall, this was a great experience and I would come back again.  They change the pastries for their high teas from time to time so we can try other varieties next time~