My experience there started out really well. You c...

My experience there started out really well. You come into this gorgeous hotel, you are greeted and seated at your table. Everything and everyone looks really fancy.

You start reading through the tea options and are initially overwhelmed. Unfortunately, our server wasn't very helpful in helping us choose. She pointed to the recommended options without elaborating, didn't inform us that we could choose different cups of tea from each other and that we could choose a different cup for each course, and on top of this hurried us along when we needed more time to read through the options. She also at first objected to me keeping the menu through our meal when I asked and said that it would be given back to me the next time I need to make a tea choice, but allowed me to do it after I explained that I want to read through it more while I have my tea and follow along.

Then the sandwiches and tea came out. The sandwiches and the rest of the food (scones and desserts) were delicious. The Marco Polo jello for the scones was especially delicious. The tea, though, tasted mostly like slightly flavoured hot water and really missed out on showcasing the varied, subtle flavours. The leaves used seemed really good but the tea wasn't steeped long enough. Whenever the waitress came to refill out cups of tea, she would pour the hot water into the pot with leaves and would pour it out into our cups right away without letting it steep at all. The second steeping was always a mix of over-steeped tea that was left over in the pot with the leaves and under-steeped water that was briefly poured over the leaves before being poured out. Given that the menu booklet states that each cup of tea is specially steeped for the perfect amount of time, I was disappointed that ours seems like it was not.