Day 1106: Afternoon Tea

Over the past couple of years I've really gotten myself to love tea. I started drinking some coffee on and off in the second half of high school, but tea was more of a thing for my parents. Then, one day, I just sort of started drinking tea (I have the feeling it had something to do with Once Upon A Time and the CaptainSwan tea that I love so much). Since then, I've always really wanted to try out the Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridian, and when my mom approached me with the idea a number of months ago, I couldn't turn her down.

I must say that, while expensive, the our meal in the Garden View Tea Room was absolutely amazing. I'm fairly certain I haven't been that full in a long time, and everything I ate was exactly what you'd expect from The Grand Floridian. To begin, you're offered a choice between various packages for your meal, each with a few different options. Most are almost identical, but a few packages offer champagne or an additional cheese plate to go along with the rest of your meal. Once you've selected a package you're offered your selection of the various tea blends, some of which are unique to the Walt Disney World Resort. I personally selected The Bedfordshire Tea package, which comes with three courses, and the Mad Hatter's Tea Party blend, which includes vanilla and natural fruits such as passion fruit and pomegranate.

I want to stop for a moment and discuss this tea...since that's half the reason we're there, right? I sort of picked the Mad Hatter's Tea Party blend on a whim, knowing that I wanted to try one of the three signature blends made specifically for The Garden View Tea Room, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is honestly one of my all time favorite teas. I actually take my tea with a spoonful of sugar, or in this case, one cube of sugar, and that's about it, but this tea was almost sweet enough even without the sugar, and you could definitely taste the hints of pomegranate and passion fruit. I'm certainly looking forward to returning and trying the other two signature blends...if I can convince myself not to just order this one again.

From there, each person is served their own pot of tea, kept warm throughout your meal by a cover. I think I ultimately drank almost the entire pot, but we also sat there for about an hour and a half probably, and I didn't want any of the delicious tea to go to waste, despite the fact that I had plenty of other delicacies to try out. If you ordered a basic package without the additional cheese tray or champagne, you start with a plate of finger sandwiches, fruit, and cheeses, all of which were amazing. Starting in the front left of the picture below we had a cucumber sandwich, a beet and cheese tart, a chicken sandwich, egg salad, a couple of different cheeses accompanied by lavosh, an onion tart, and of course fruit, (The additional sandwich on the right is another Egg Salad).

Following your sandwiches you're brought another plate that features a scone and a jam tart, both of which I hope to eat every day for the rest of my life. We're still unsure about what the spreads for the scone were aside from the butter in the middle, but needless to say they were delicious as well. At that point we were already rather full, but we still had dessert waiting for us, which comes with your choice of either house-made pastries, strawberries and creme, or English Trifle. Having seen the Swan Pastry long before taking my seat in The Garden View Tea Room, I knew what I'd be having, and Frank followed suit while Mom went for the Strawberries and Creme. 

My pastries came with the Swan that was made of puff pastry and a delicious vanilla creme, as well as the chocolate eclair you can see hiding in the background, with Mom's strawberries and creme sitting to the side. Ultimately the only thing I left behind was the strawberry, although I'm unsure if that was a part of Mom's dessert or mine. Either way, by the time I finished off the Swan and my last cup of tea, I felt like I'd eaten more in one sitting than I did all of last semester. 

Overall, The Bedfordshire Tea package that I picked ran at $30, although other packages can run all the way up to $175 for two. The individual packages, however, remain under $50 per person, and if you love tea and are looking for a quiet way to spend your afternoon, I definitely recommend stopping by The Grand Floridian for some afternoon tea. I certainly plan on returning as soon as possible and look forward to sharing the experience with other members of my family, and avid tea drinkers, in the future. 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on January 22 due to travel).

Day 705: My Disney Collection V3.5

It's funny how sometimes you're on Pinterest or Tumblr or Twitter and you find a post or a meme that literally perfectly describes your life. For me, this is one of those times.

Over a year ago, back on Day 172 actually (which you can read HERE), I did one of my "Disney Collection" posts on my mug collection. It's true, I have quite the extensive mug collection, but what I didn't expect was to be doing an update on a collection post this soon in the game. Sure, some of my other collections have extended too, and while it's been a long time since the last Disney collection post, there's been a few in the works for a while that I just haven't gotten around to.

However, Christmas brought me a lot of new and interesting mugs. In fact, maybe I should admit defeat and accept that I might have too many. What do you think?

But, since this is an update post, let's talk about the Disney additions that have come in the last year and a half! We'll start with the trio of mugs that I've collected over the past few trips. I happened to have someone contact me about the Spaceship Earth mug even before they began selling them on Disney property, and of course the second I got to Florida, I bought it. I guess this counts for part of a Spaceship Earth collection post in that respect too, but it's not alone, although the Spaceship Earth mug is definitely the weirdest one I have. There's a matching Cinderella Castle and Tree of Life mug to go with Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, and my dad and I continue to wonder where Hollywood Studios is. 

Then we have this duo that I got on Black Friday from the Disney Store. I definitely love the old vintage feel of both of these, and the travel mug on the right is literally my favorite color (although the coloring is a bit off in this picture). Definitely good additions to my collection.

While I collect a pin for every year at Disney World, I don't really collect a mug for every year. That would get exhausting and I'd definitely run out of room faster than I already am with this mug collection. However, sometimes there's a mug that's just too good to pass up, and this definitely goes on that list. 2013 was a big year for me, and this mug is just about as big. It's a double size, meaning that I have plenty of space for lots of coffee or tea when I use it! Plus, that 3 as the handle is pretty awesome. 

Next up is another of my newest mugs from Black Friday, Chip! I've already gotten several compliments on this one and have actually been meaning to buy it for a while, only I never got around to it. Chip is seriously adorable though, and I have the distinct feeling that I know a few other people who might love one too.

And finally we have the Once addition to the bunch, my Hook's Crew mug. I've wanted this on a T-shirt for AGES, but while ordering a mug for a friend from RedBubble, I found this to be a cheaper option and jumped on the chance. I pull it out for watching Once Upon A Time, of course, as well as literally anything to do with Peter Pan or Colin O'Donoghue. So basically, it's out a lot. My roommates sure love it too, but we'll save that picture for another day.

Since last time I shared the Disney themed hot cocoas, I figured this time we'd look at the Disney tea I got a while back from Adagio Teas. You already have heard about the CaptainSwan tea, and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some OutlawQueen and Snowing tea when I head back to college for the spring semester, but the last time I ordered (to get more CaptainSwan tea, of course), I made sure to try some other ones too. There are a ton of fandom blends out there, but luckily I found a bunch specifically tailored to Walt Disney World, and that was the end of that conversation. The Echo Lake blend is a chocolate mint blend, definitely good for afternoon snack time, while the Fantasyland blend is a vanilla and berry combination. Plus, I added in the Captain Hook blend, which is a delicious blackberry tea that I've been really into as of late. All three are spectacular and you should definitely try them sometime if you order from Adagio! There's a whole selection of Disney blends! 

As for me, I have to deal with the fact that mom made me move my mugs out of her cabinet and into a cabinet of my own because I have too many to fit with the rest of the glasses now. I guess that's alright on my end, because I get my own cabinet, and I got a ton of new mugs, but I also have to somehow convince them that I do have a rotation schedule to make sure I use them all. They don't believe me, but I do. 

Today's mug, if I drink tea tonight, will be the castle mug, by the way. 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on December 22 due to finals).

Day 649: CaptainSwan Tea

I generally don't like tea. I really, truly don't. I feel like there's this fine line between the coffee drinker and the tea drinker (not to say you can't like both because then boy would I be a hypocrite), but for some reason the majority of us like one or the other and simply can't understand how the opposite adores the drink so similar yet different from our own favorite. Wow, even just trying to say that was confusing.

The point? Tea and coffee really aren't that different. I mean, they're both hot beverages, both can contain caffeine (or not), both are loved by many, you can put cream and sugar in both and both are totally something you can drink any time of day (although I feel coffee is a bit of a bad idea come 11 at night unless your cramming for a test or something). My parents like tea, and I like coffee, and none of us can ever understand how the other likes their own beverage.

Personally, I've always found tea to be bland. If I'm going to drink water that's hot I'm going to drink water that's hot, and what in the world would be the point in drinking plain hot water? I'm probably more on the coffee train because I've always been a fan of hot chocolate and not as much a fan of apple cider. There's fine lines here people, fine lines.

But then, on a whim, I ordered some tea online.

Once fans may have heard about this tea weeks ago. Some crazy awesome people out there seem to spend much more of their day thinking about their OTP (if that's even possible), coming up with brilliant fanart or products along the lines of our favorite ships. This tea is one of those things. Jennifer Morrison, Colin O'Donoghue and Adam Horowitz all commented on it. I was supposed to be looking for a new phone case but ended up buying tea. Megan said it was a good investment though. This way all my roommates and I can share the tea and have all the comforts of being brought home.

And for real. This tea is actually really, really good. I don't know why though either. Maybe it's because it's the perfect combination of chai, Irish breakfast tea, coconut and cinnamon. Maybe it's because I'm just really cold all the time and tea is good for warming you up. Or maybe it's because it's CaptainSwan. I'm not really sure, but this tea is delicious, and it comes in the most adorable tin too!

And oddly enough, Jennifer Morrison and I got our CaptainSwan tea on the same day. I take that as some sort of weird accomplishment. 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on October 20).