In spite of its traditional customaries, sometimes Afternoon Tea should be less about the formalities and more about friends getting together for a chat over some good cake and tea. That’s exactly the order of the day at Proper Tea in Manchester as we discovered on a recent sunny Sunday afternoon.
Nestled amongst the city’s Cathedral, Proper Tea is a rustic haven of mismatched teapots, homemade pastries and stripped back furniture on checkerboard tiles.
If you fancy treating yourself to more than a coffee and quick slice of one of the many cakes on the counter (all of which looked AMAZING), Proper Tea's Afternoon Tea offering is a reasonably priced option, presented in your standard three tiers but with an interesting arrangement.
To start, the top layer comes two stodgy toasted sandwiches, each filled with pastrami, gherkins and cheese. A really good alternative to the finger sandwich assorted we’ve come to expect from but considering it’s such a huge part of the meal, it would have been nice to have had a choice of sandwich filling (Caroline’s not a fan of red meat and I’m not on great terms with cheese - nothing to declare any dietary requirements over - however a quick switcheroo and we were sorted) so we would recommend asking if there's a choice when you arrive.
To start, the top layer comes two stodgy toasted sandwiches, each filled with pastrami, gherkins and cheese. A really good alternative to the finger sandwich assorted we’ve come to expect from but considering it’s such a huge part of the meal, it would have been nice to have had a choice of sandwich filling (Caroline’s not a fan of red meat and I’m not on great terms with cheese - nothing to declare any dietary requirements over - however a quick switcheroo and we were sorted) so we would recommend asking if there's a choice when you arrive.
In addition to this, the savoury palette continues on the next tier with spinach and cheese and tomato pastries, mini toad in the hole and veggie pies. We’re big fans of a gentleman’s afternoon tea so we liked these a lot and the range of flavours was really good.
Finally the bottom tier features a pretty array of mini cakes and giant scone to share - a heart shaped scone none the less! There are 6 miniature sweets, all completely different so you’ll have to fight over who gets the chocolate and hazelnut, but the eclectic selection means Proper Tea has covered all basis from pistachio to raspberry and lemon and everything else in between.
Overall this is a really nice Afternoon Tea, it's quite different than a lot of other similarly contemporary teas we've tried and the tea shop itself is a gorgeous environment. It's definitely the kind of Afternoon Tea you would want to spontaneously pop in on one weekend. Plus it hosts a fantastic range of loose leaf teas for you to try so if you're a tea obsessive or a just a fan of a good old breakfast tea, you will be spoilt by this extensive menu.
Sparkling Afternoon Tea is priced at £20pp.
For more info and to book visit: http://properteadeveloper.com/
