Lift your pinkys!

One of my best friends, PreppyGirl, has said that every woman should experience formal afternoon tea at least once in their life. In an earlier post, I listed "Tea at the Drake Hotel" as one of my Chicago "Things to Do". I was able to check off this item as PreppyGirl and I, along with four of our girlfriends had a 3pm seating for tea at the Drake. We all dressed for the occasion, with the majority of us in skirts and sweaters. While waiting to be sat, we enjoyed the fabulous people watching opportunity. We marveled at our beautiful and elegant table setting, which included this contraption:


Since the majority of us had never had loose leaf tea before, it was a first to use a tea strainer!

Afternoon Tea at the Drake Hotel is held in the Palm Court Room. For $26.50, you receive your choice of tea and four types of tea sandwiches including:

• Roast Beef
• Cucumber and Tomato
• Egg Salad
• Asparagus and Ham (looks like a sushi roll!)

In addition, you receive fruit bread, scones, devonshire cream, and preserves. After all of that, you get a wonderful selection of petit fours.

We all tried different flavors of tea. I selected the Ginger Peach tea, which was wonderfully fragrant. I wish I had a candle that smelled like that! I tasted some of the other teas ordered by my friends, including Wild Blackberries. The sandwiches were really tasty, with favorites being the Roast Beef and Asparagus/Ham. Our waiter even brought us an extra plate of sandwiches after we devoured the first batch. The petit fours were excellent as well.

It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. We spent two hours giggling about the tea experience and just having really good and funny conversation. I was really happy to be able to share this experience with these great girls!