2018-04 - High tea at Betty's Tea Shop (York, UK)

My friends recommended that we visit Betty's Tea in York for High Tea. We stumbled across the shop while wondering around looking for The Shambles the previous evening. Since they do not take reservations, the cashier suggested that we arrive before 11 am in order to avoid the lines. We happily obliged and made Betty's Tea our morning breakfast at 10 am.

The view from Betty's Tea

Betty's Tea is a big, beautiful shop with stained glass windows on the intersection of two streets. The location that we had stumbled upon is wedged between two pubs on a pedestrian street. We were the second through seventh people in line at 9:55 am waiting for Betty's to open at 10 am. The man in front of us was a local who told us a bit about Betty's tea shop. The original is actually in a different town called Harrogate. The location that we visited sells tea and scones on the first floor and serves high tea on the second. We were seated just in front of a picture window facing the street.

Tea sandwiches, scone and cakes

For 20 pounds each, we received our own personal pots of tea (with one free refill), four sandwiches, a sweet scone and three cakes. The tea came with a side of milk and above average sized sugar cubes made with large sugar crystals. It also arrived with a strainer to remove any loose leaf tea when pouring into the tea cups. The sandwiches included egg salad, chicken salad and salmon. The scone came with generous servings of clotted cream and strawberry jam. The cakes for the day were a mini chocolate extravagance, a mini fruit tart and a lemon macaroon.