High Tea at Azuma
December 25, 2013
I have been yearning to indulge in this recently introduced (May 2013) Japanese high tea service at Azuma and it has proven to be rather difficult to arrange a day to come here as the high tea sessions are only available from Mondays to Fridays from 2 to 5pm. Finally a friend and myself found a day to have the high tea on Christmas Eve. No bookings are required, you may just rock up and mention that you are having high tea and you will be seated straight away.
Here is a link to their high tea menu. We opted for the Kyoto high tea which was $25 per person and included a choice of tea or coffee.
 |
| Kyoto high tea with matcha latte |
It took about 20 minutes for the food to come out which not a long a wait at all and when it was brought out my eyes lit up in excitement. Everything was daintily presented and looked really delicious especially the desserts. I love how everything was arranged in cute bento boxes which made it all the more traditional and unique.
 |
| Matcha Latte |
I love the colour of matcha because green is my favourite colour. The latte is not sweetened so they provide you with some sugar so you may sweeten it to your liking. I usually like to add quite a bit of sugar but decided to add less this time as I wanted to savour more of the flavour of the matcha. The drink was quite creamy and aromatic and complemented the sweets well.
 |
| Savoury bento consisting of sushi |
Not your typical sandwiches, hurrah! I don't generally enjoying eating sandwiches so having sushi instead is surely a welcome change. There were two types of sushi: salad roll with asparagus, avocado, cucumber and shiso leaf. The other sushi they called "piquant salmon canapés" which consisted of avocado and cucumber sushi topped with spicy salmon and an edamame bean. My favourite would definitely be the salmon canapés, the spicy mayo with the salmon was delicious and I could tell the sushi was made fresh as the rice was still soft. The salad roll was definitely a healthier sushi, it fell apart easily so it was a tad difficult to eat but still quite good nonetheless. The side of pickled ginger was pungent in flavour and cleansed the palate well.
 |
| Sweet bento |
Bottom right: Seasonal fruit salad with champagne jelly. The jelly was sweet but not overly so and had an extremely subtle champagne flavour. The jelly greatly complemented the fruits which included strawberry, blueberry, kiwi and rockmelon.
Top right: Rolled green tea cake. I adore chiffon cake and this one was just lovely. The chiffon was fluffy and soft and the pairing with green tea butter cream was perfection. The butter cream was not heavy at all.
Top left: Gateau chocolat. A dense but moist dark chocolate cake which was a good break from all the sweeter desserts.
Bottom left: Creme brûlée. We left this one for last and the creme brûlée was probably my favourite out of all the desserts. The sugar crystals were torched to a beautiful dark caramel colour and it was not burnt. There was no distinct crack though when breaking through it with the spoon but I won't complain as it tasted heavenly. The vanilla-flavoured custard was sweetened just right and very smooth and most importantly it did not taste eggy.
High tea at Azuma was a lovely experience and I truly enjoyed their offerings. The Japanese elements sets it apart from your typical high tea services and I hope to try the Tokyo high tea set next time. Definitely visit this place if you want to enjoy a quaint but unique high tea with great service.
High tea at Azuma was a lovely experience and I truly enjoyed their offerings. The Japanese elements sets it apart from your typical high tea services and I hope to try the Tokyo high tea set next time. Definitely visit this place if you want to enjoy a quaint but unique high tea with great service.
0 comments