Where: Buford, Georgia Style: Lakeside dining room Tea Selection: 11 loose leaf teas by Jenwey Tea Co. Teatimes: Friday to Sunday, 2 or 3 pm Reservations: Required Contact: 678-318-2048 Cost: $75 Royal Tea; $65 Afternoon Tea; $32 Children’s Tea (under 12) Destination Tea Tips: Afternoon tea is served at Sidney’s inside Legacy Lodge, on the Lanier Islands resort. The front gate attendant can direct you to the lodge, and the entrance fee is waived for afternoon tea guests..
Destination Tea Notes: This spring, having come over from Château Élan Winery & Resort, Director of Food and Beverage Nishant Chaudhary wanted to add an afternoon tea service to Lanier Islands’ Lodge offerings. Launched in late March, the service is still relatively unknown, but we predict will quickly become very popular, especially considering how few and far between are the afternoon tea venues in this area. Our excellent server Brianna gives us a minute to peruse the tea options, before rolling a tea cart over to the table, inviting us to smell any of the teas before we choose, and then preparing our teas at the table. We are touched at this extra service not normally performed at an afternoon tea. This was the original custom in early British tea-drinking days, when the lady of the house would prepare tea in front of her guests to guarantee its unadulterated quality. Although there were a few misses in this new afternoon tea menu, we admired Nishant for inviting feedback, and agreed the experience is enhanced by sitting near the windows overlooking the lake.
Enter the lodge and you’ll see the entrance to Sidney’s in the back left corner.
The restaurant provides a casual setting for afternoon tea.
Tea Selection
Each guest is invited to choose a tea (and Brianna graciously acknowledged that the “green” and “white” labels had been inadvertently switched on the menu).
Good to see these tea blends chock full of real botanicals.
After smelling the fragrance of the Jasmine Pearls, we knew one tea we’d definitely be requesting. We chose Bourbon Vanilla Rooibos for our second pot.
This picture perfectly captures Brianna’s warm personality. She was a kind and friendly server, interested in getting things just right for her guests. We smiled at our squirrel-themed Japanese cast iron tea kettle, called a Tetsubin.
A couple of notes about the tea preparation: if hot water in carafes is poured over the teas, how can they be steeped at their appropriate temperatures, which will vary by type? Also, for the true teas (green, white, black), guests need to be instructed to remove the infuser baskets from these generous five cup pots after the appropriate brewing time, to prevent bitterness.
You can see that the Jasmine Pearl (green tea) became fairly dark because we did not pull out our tealeaves quickly.
Scones & Spreads, Savories and Sweets
Afternoon tea includes five savories, one scone with spreads, and four desserts.
A small note to aim to present tea sandwiches neatly and uniformly cut. We enjoyed the variety of savory flavors: Deviled Egg, Avocado on Pita Round, Cucumber Herbed Cream Cheese, Chicken Curry with Tarragon, and Trout.
Although the scone looked homemade, it was almost as hard as a rock, and a challenge to break apart…
…which was a shame, because the butter, marmalade and especially the honey with honeycomb would have been yummy to spread on a warm, soft scone.
Desserts included macaron (pictured above), dark chocolate strawberry, orange muffin with whipped cream and chocolate chips, and apple tart.
We love comments! Destination Tea's comment policy shares a guiding principle with afternoon tea etiquette: please be gracious. We welcome honest comments that are not rude or scathing.
