Afternoon Tea at Oxford Exchange

I had a very productive meeting this afternoon at the Oxford Exchange in downtown Tampa.

You can read more about the Oxford Exchange in THIS POST (to recap: it is quite possibly the coolest coffee/tea shop in Tampa). I showed up at 4:00 expecting to just drink coffee and talk business, but was pleasantly surprised when we were ushered to the dining room for afternoon tea. Afternoon tea? Of course! I had completely forgot that Oxford Exchange were making a name for themselves in the afternoon tea department and I had added it to my Tampa to-do list. Perfect.

At this point I was sad I didn’t bring my nice camera to do the afternoon tea justice, so you will have to forgive my smartphone-quality photos and believe me when I say the afternoon tea service was lovely and everything was as delicious as it looked.

I started with the early grey lavender tea, which our server raved about.

It was slightly sweet and just the right balance of lavender and earl grey. I was a fan.

Then we split the afternoon tea sampler.

The sampler came with a variety of sandwiches

The chicken curry was FABULOUS! I’m now inspired to make my own chicken curry sandwich at home!

Scones

My dining partner raved about the blueberry, but I was partial to the cinnamon. They were dry and crumbly and everything a good scone should be.

And desserts

Way too many sweets for two people. I did try the eclair which surprised me with a caramel filling – one of my favorite things from the sampling!

The afternoon tea was a lot of fun and the perfect spot for an afternoon meeting. I’ll have to return with girlfriends, I bet this would be a great spot to host a book club or TBLB gathering.

For the second day in a row I filled up on afternoon snacks and wasn’t in the mood to cook or eat come dinner time. Derek made an easy meal of grilled chicken and okra and I made myself a small plate of what he had prepared.

Thanks, babe! ‘Twas delicious.

Can you believe tomorrow is Halloween? I almost forgot until I was trying to make plans with a friend for tomorrow night and she reminded me – oops! I’m not sure why, but it just doesn’t feel like it this year (blame it on a busy October/November!). On another note, I saw Christmas decorations were already going up near South Tampa! The holidays are coming!!

Good night!