I’ve been craving sweets all week and today I am fully satisfied! I went to Cafe Essence for afternoon tea. We sat in the lobby area as I really enjoy the natural light but they also have ample seats in the cafe area.

There are menus on all the lobby tables for browsing for passing-byers. We started looking through it and I was pretty set on having the afternoon tea set. My hubby already had a full lunch so he opted for dessert and coffee. The afternoon set does take a maximum of 30 minutes to prepare which the server had notified me ahead of time.  For us it took maybe 15-20 minutes, the wait did not seem very long at all. There are a total of 3 options for afternoon tea which takes place between 3-6PM, there is the traditional afternoon tea set which I ordered, the chocolate tea set which is mainly sweets without the savory sandwiches and last the arabic afternoon tea set. 

Drinks

After ordering, our server came with welcome drinks. It was a pleasant refreshing surprise! The drink was a fruity mock tail which tasted like Sprite with cranberry juice. Soon after, they came out with our hot drinks. I ordered a black loose leaf tea and it came with milk and sugar and a full pot. My hubby’s coffee also came with a full pot. The pots were rather large and neither of us finished our pots.  For the black tea I ordered, I preferred it to be more rich and bold but this one was a bit light. One small note was that there was no strainer in the pot so I did get some leaves in my cup. Nonetheless, the China it came in was beautiful!

Sandwiches & Sweets

I was super impressed when the main afternoon set came. It came in a large 3 tier afternoon set which was beautifully presented. Each item came in a pair and there were at least 11 items.  In total 22 items for 1 person was more than enough! Each item was so delicately made. I cannot believe this full set is for only 1 person. Ensure you have at least 2 people for 1 set for afternoon tea at this place. The set came with 4 types of sandwiches – asparagus, salmon, salami, egg. It comes with scone, a strawberry cake and a brownie and the top layer has macarons, a cone pastry, a pudding and a blueberry tart. These selections may change overtime by the cafe.

Some of the noteworthy items are the macarons covered in gold flakes and the strawberry/raspberry cake also have gold flakes dusted on top. The asparagus sandwich which was light and appetizing and the scones come with clotted cream and jam. Service was impeccable and the price was great too.

It’s 135AED for the full set including the drink. But in reality, this set serves 2 people though!