Not Your Usual Station Catering

 The Carriage cafe bistro within Ballater's old Station features the royal carriage and a full afternoon tea experience backed by the Prince's Foundation and Dumfries House Trust

Ladies & Gents Afternoon Tea

Tina's Tea Room at Bury Art Museum offers Ladies Afternoon Tea (at £13)

 and Gentleman's Afternoon Tea (at £15!

Before Noon Tea

9am to noon Before Noon Tea with scones, bacon sarnies, pancake tower, granola, mini muffin, cinammon swirl and more!  Mimi's Bakehouse, Edinburgh

Tea at the Opera

 Company of Cooks' stunning new afternoon tea at the Royal Opera House - £37.50 for great setting and quality food.  Cucumber and cream cheese sandwich on sourdough bread, egg and cress sandwich on mustard seed bread, salt beef sandwich on rye bread and smoked salmon blini.

 Pistachio eclair with praline grains, Opera Gateau (of course), Mandarin and kumquat amandine and apple and blackberry tart - designed by top pastry chef Claire Clark MBE.

 Nice touches with David Mellor cutlery, seasonal plum jam and colourful menu in the iron frame setting of the Paul Hamlyn Hall.

Deluxe?

The handwritten label says: Deluxe Cream Tea Ham & Cucumber £6.95.  The chilled scone and cling film says something else.  See more at http://pinterest.com/turpinsmale/cafe-howlers/

Top Tea by Top Chef

Smart Hospitality's afternoon tea box presentation by top chef Angela Hartnett.  Angela is not one of these 'add name but never appear' chefs; she actually turns up service after service to ensure high standards.  Impressive.

Anything for the Weekend?

For regular followers of this blog you will have noticed that we have started taking the weekends off (after 460 consecutive days posts) but there is no rest for the dedicated cafe professional.  Weekend slots will be reserved for guest contributions and re-runs of our very own London Cafe Tour video.  Send us your latest discoveries.

Guest Spot

Thank-you to Ben Duffy for his notes and photos following a visit to Teacup on Thomas Street in Manchester.  Ben was impressed with "a large unit and rammed at 10.30 Saturday morning".

Tea for Two

Afternoon tea is booming at the Ritz and Brown's hotels in London and at stately homes such as Chatsworth.  So why not at your local garden centre?  Dobbies go for it.