Melissa’s Cozy Teacup

Last year on Mother’s Day, I attended the Balmoral Tea at Montague’s Coffee House located at 1019 S. Tejon, in Colorado Springs. I was very disappointed in what they had to offer for their afternoon tea.

I have been to Montague’s many times before to enjoy their lunches or to just sit and enjoy a delicious and very inexpensively priced pot of tea. Based on my lunch experience, I was expecting a special treat to enjoy with my companions that day. What we got, however, was not what I expected.

For $15.00 a person we were ‘treated’ to quite a lot of store bought food which was so much more disappointing to me because I knew they could cook good tasting food but for some reason, it was not present at the afternoon tea. The only things made by hand were a dill and cucumber sandwich and a strawberry dipped in chocolate. The rest of the food was as follows; a tray of carrot sticks and store bought spinache dip with asiago cheese bread cubes and some sliced cheese triangles. The next tray was an assortment of store bought baklava, store bought mini blueberry muffins, store bought chocolate cheese cake, and scones made at Montague’s that were as hard as day old cookies. The final and top tray was an assortment of fresh fruit.

The waitress, who’s apron and clothes were filthy with food, brought out the tray stand of food and the tea pots, and we did not see her for the rest of the meal, not to refill the water goblets, or the tea pots, or to give us our check. Having been to Montague’s before, I knew that ordinarily they were more the, deli counter type service, than at-your-elbow restaurant service, but I expected better service for this sort of meal and when I expressed this to the cashier, she agreed and offered an apology.

I understand that offering an afternoon tea to customers is labor intensive, but what restaurants who offer this need to know is that an afternoon tea means more to a customer than would a regular lunch. We expect to see food presented to us that looks and tastes labor intensive. Afternoon tea is something special. You invite special people to join you. You dress up a little better for afternoon tea than you might for a lunch date. The general feeling and expectation is light hearted fun.

In a scoring process of 1-10, ten being the highest, I give the Balmoral Tea at Montague’s a very flat five. I only scored them that high because I have tasted their hand made food and I know they can do better and the tea was well brewed.

Tea Tip: The Balmoral Tea at Montague’s may also be known as Afternoon Tea. It is not to be confused with High Tea or the ‘Knife and Fork Tea’ which refers to what was known during victorian times as the workman’s or working class dinner. This High Tea was served later in the evening (afternoon tea is served typically from 3-5 pm) and includes heartier fare such as meat and potatoes, denser-darker breads, fish, bacon, cheeses and pies.

The next time you invite your friends over for tea, make sure to call it by it’s proper name. If it’s a fancy affair with dainty tea sandwiches, scones with lemon curd, jam and clotted cream, you are inviting them to Afternoon Tea.

There seems to be some interest in this as I am getting hits on my site looking for recipes and ways to do this, so, I’m going to help you all out-a bit.

In the December 2006 edition of Southern Lady magazine, there is an article on Jo’s Whipping Cream Pound Cake. Now, I did try this recipe and for me, it contained too much sugar. The author of the article wrote that she ‘tweaked’ the baking time and created ‘Cuppa Cakes’ mini cakes baked in oven safe tea cups. The teacups pictured look quite a bit more substantial than your run-of-the-mill teacup.

I would recommend starting out with a ramekin then graduating to ceramic, oven-safe mugs then ceramic, oven-safe teacups. I don’t know if I would risk a teacup but perhaps you could purchase some at a local thrift shop so you don’t risk breaking grandma’s antique china.

I hope this helps and here is a link to

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Here is a recipe where a teacup is used to measure the ingredients: Teacup Bread

and another: Civil War Corn Bread

Someone visited my blog from the Czech Republic. Here is a link to the official web site of the Czech Republic.