As you may know I love going for Afternoon Tea. I especially love an afternoon tea with a twist! But my absolute favourite is an afternoon tea based around a fandom! So when I read about the Mary Poppins themed afternoon tea at Aqua Shard. I knew I had to try it! Originally, we wanted to go at the end of last year around the time of the released of Mary Poppins Returns. However, it seemed a lot of people had the same idea as it was fully booked. So instead we opted to go last weekend, as a little pre-Spring treat!
The Mary Poppins’ Afternoon Tea at Aqua Shard, takes its inspiration from the Mary Poppins books more than the movies. Each of the sweet treats is based on a theme from storylines within the books. Saying that if you haven’t read the books, and just seen the first movie, You will still recognise some of the common themes from the movies, like her floral hat and magical carpet bag.
Aqua Shard is one of the restaurants on The Shard building. On the 31st floor, so as you can expect the views are amazing! The floor to ceiling windows offers unobstructed views of the city, river Thames and Docklands. The ideal location for an afternoon tea based on one of London’s more iconic fictional characters.
Mary Poppins Afternoon Tea
Upon being seated at our table, we were given menus printed on ornate mirrors. Our waiter (dressed as Bert from the books), explained the tea menu to us. As well as offering traditional teas, they have created two special blended just for the Mary Poppins Afternoon Tea. First was Mary’s Tea a black tea with rose petals for a floral twist. Next up was Bert’s Tea which was more of a smokey tea, blended with lapsang souchong. I opted for Mary’s Tea.
As with all the afternoon teas, first up with the sandwiches. As I don’t tea meat they omitted the ham sandwiches from the menu and switched it out for a courgette sandwich (an usual twist on a cucumber sandwich). The other “sandwiches” included, a crab roll on a brioche bun, an egg and truffle sandwich. And smoked salmon and cream cheese on a crumpet!
Whilst we were eating our sandwiches waiter Bert appeared with the tiered cake stand. He told us about each of the cakes and which storyline they were inspired by (more on those later). The beautiful stand is based on Mary Poppins herself, the base is her boots and the top is her umbrella!
The Cakes
Then once again, our waiter returned this time with Mary Poppin’s magical carpet bag. Which contained our warm scones ready for our second course. We had vanilla and raisin scones served with clotted cream. and a choice of plum or raspberry jam.
Then it was on to the cake course! The cakes included a ‘Strike Me Pink Sponge’ (victoria sponge cake), a gingerbread star biscuit, like the biscuits the Banks’ children had in The Gingerbread Shop. A chocolate hat, based on Mary Poppins’ own hat. It even contained a cherry mousse, for Cherry Tree Lane (where the Bank’s Family lived). The cute little tin contained a golden syrup cake inspired by children’s visit to ‘The Back to Front Zoo.’ Like the bear in the story, you had to open the tin to get your goodies. Finally, we had candy floss!
