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High Tea, Dutch Style

30-03-2011 om 12:00 by Amanda Potter

061A pleasant mid-afternoon meal with finger food, sweets, and (of course) tea, high tea in a cafe is a lovely way to pass the time in the company of friends or on a date. Although high tea is actually a British invention, taking tea in a restaurant or cafe has been adopted around the world, including our own backyard here in Maastricht. Services range widely from the casual to the stately and no doubt have only a small resemblance to proper high teas, but when there are scones involved, who can complain?  Here are a couple places I’ve enjoyed high tea in the area.

John Mullins Irish Pub

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John Mullins offers an afternoon tea for people with a big appetite. Each person is given their choice of a personal pot of tea or a cup of coffee, and then presented with a three tiered platter packed with finger food. The first level is sandwiches and wraps, including a really nice smoke salmon and cucumber one, the second tier is cakes, and the third chocolates and other small sweets. No doubt the actual content changes frequently. The food is tasty and the platters are intended to be slowly selected from while you relax in the pub, but you probably won’t be able to eat it all. I took afternoon tea with my husband at John Mullins and we found it casual and fun.

Coffeelovers

The Coffeelovers on the corner of the 1992 Plein will arrange a lovely high tea spread with a reservation. With a two courses and a bottomless pot of hot water and even a small bottle of bubbly, the Coffeelovers’ high tea fits my idea of taking tea a bit more. I attended this one with a friend and we had a choice of seven types of local tea in loose leaf form. The first course were a pair of small sandwiches followed by a plate of sweets including a scone (although no clotted cream). The china cups and saucers were a nice touch although their mismatching colors were less high class and more charmingly cute.

High tea (or high tea-like) service tends to pop up in some unlikely places. I’ve heard that Simply Bread offers high tea, but I have not tried it. Have you taken tea somewhere in the Maastricht region? Please share it with us.

Comments

cameron said
09-02-2012 at 20:22

in Brabant, that's the department directly to the north of Limburg (Maastricht).

Zaira said
14-09-2011 at 18:59

Hi Amanda,

I just read now this article (a bit late) and also the one about Taart. I have to say I am a big fan of High Tea.

I have not yet try it in Maastricht, but I would like to share three places in Limburg where I had High Tea:

1.- Castle WinselerHof in Landgraaf. I organized a surprise high tea for one of my friend's birthday. We were 8 personas and it was really nice. The food was good but the tea was just from the brand Pickwick, which I did not like it. But the place is very nice, small and cosy. Great atmosphere.

2.- Hotel Prinses Juliana in Valkenburg. This was also very nice, you get a lot of finger food and sweets, plus delcious scones with clotted cream. We met the person in charge and I think she is from UK, so the High Tea was perfect.

3.- Castle Wittem. This was our surprise wedding gift from my husband's family. It was also very good. We could seat in the terrace with great weather and later we moved inside the castle. Tea pots and delicious finger food.

These are my experiences. But the best High Tea I ever had was at the hotel Ritz in Paris. By far the best.

I have a couple of places in my list to go in Maastricht, like Bokes, Courage and some others. I am waiting for Kruisheren Hotel to have High Tea.

But I like a lot your articles. I have been to Taart and I am sure their High Tea is good.

Thanks for writing about this, and share your experience with us.

Zaira

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Amanda Potter moved to Maastricht from Boston, Massachusetts in April, 2009 with her husband Dan for his research position at the University of Maastricht. Between exploring their adopted country and learning about a new culture, Amanda blogs about her experience and the city at www.MaastrichtMinutiae.com. Amanda works as a freelance writer and web designer at www.FallenKitten.com and webmaster for the comic www.WalkingtheLethe.com. She has two globetrotting cats that keep her company in their second floor Maastricht flat.
 
 

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