Afternoon Tea at Peak Lounge / ピークラウンジのアフタヌーンティー

Afternoon Tea and Summer High Tea at Peak Lounge, Park Hyatt Tokyo
パークハイアット東京のピークラウンジでアフタヌーンティーとサマーハイティー

Park Hyatt Tokyo, a 5-star hotel in Tokyo, has afternoon tea as well as most of the other hotels have.
What I like about its afternoon tea is that you can choose as many as tea leaves including coffees and also get petit finger foods which waitresses bring to the tables so I've been here several times before.

From August 1st to the 31st, they have "Summer High Tea" which comes with kakigori, shaved ice.
I've never had high tea set as I always got afternoon tea set and I wanted to try high tea set as it's served with saved ice, which is made with natural water.

Here's the some information I found the difference between afternoon tea and high tea.
High tea was started by labor class and farmers and it's taken later than afternoon tea time due to the life circumstances.
Thus, aristocracy never considered or said high tea is same as afternoon tea.
Also, high tea is provided not at the period when afternoon tea is served so that technically high tea was meant to be more like dinner and it comes with not only light meals like sandwiches or snacks, but also main dishes with meat or fish are served.
However, recently afternoon tea and high tea aren't different each other.

Another reason they don't differ much these days involves the states.
Before the US went independent, it was a colony of England, and Americans took "high" for "formal," thus "high tea" equals "high-class tea tradition."
Then, the word high tea became another general term for afternoon tea and mistakingly identified same as afternoon tea.
And needless to say, Japan has embraced foreign cultures, especially (and historically) from the states, Japanese didn't know the real meaning for high tea and accepted as it's brought.
This is why there's a mix of 2 different words.

Ok, here's the review.
We booked this plate at noon, and we got there a little bit earlier but they're nicely taking us to a table by the window.

Peak Lounge, located on the 41st floor, it's covered with huge glasses and has a nice city view.

We decided to take one afternoon tea set and one summer high tea set.
The waitress said she'd bring shaved ice when I finish dessert plate.
It's really thoughtful of them to let me enjoy dessert set first and then icy fresh shaved ice.
I wonder if it's because when people eat cold foods, sense of tongue gets numb so that they bring shaved ice afterwards.

Anyways, this is the menu.

I noticed that one letter is missing in the high tea menu.
Montpellier section, the Japanese is supposed to be 「アプリコットゼリーとともに」 but it's ending as 「アプリコットゼリーととも」 which doesn't make sense.

And we ordered our first tea.
This is the tea menu.
The motif on the top is set on one of the elevators.

After a while, our drinks were served.
My first drink is "Giving" and also additional hot water to pour into a pot if it gets too strong after minutes.

Giving is one of the herb teas and it's mix of hibiscus, rose hip, and stevia.
This tea is rich in Vitamin C to help maintain beautiful skin.

Later, our afternoon tea set and high tea set were brought.
Afternoon tea set.

As it's not afternoon tea set, high tea set was not served on the 3-plate tea rack but on a long flat plate.

Details of the afternoon tea set.
On the top plate, finger sandwiches.
From the right top in a clockwise:
Shoulder ham, marinated celeriac, tomatoes;
Poached shrimps, avocado, egg salad; and
Marinated sweet corn, ricotta cheese.

右上から時計回りに：
ショルダーハムと根セロリのマリネ トマト
ボイルドシュリンプとアボカド エッグサラダ
スイートコーンのマリネとリコッタチーズ

I don't like mayo so I could only have a bit of ham salad, but the salted ham and marinated celeriac with sliced tomato matched really well. Especially I like the celeriac a lot.
My husband had egg salad in pita-ish bread and he said they didn't go well together.
Sweet corn with ricotta cheese was AMAZING. I wish delicatessen at the 1st floor had this.

On the second plate, it's Mango scone.
The green sauce in a cup is matcha, green tea.
*They bring warm plain scone later.

マンゴースコーンと抹茶ソース
*プレーンスコーンは後から温かい状態で提供される

Mango scone itself tasted good and was flavorful without any topping.
Matcha sauce had some bitterness like real matcha.
However, the sauce was loose and hard to put on scone and I thought it'd be easy to apply if it's thicker and condensed.
I'm not sure if they had compatibility but maybe matcha sauce helps taste sweetness of mango in the scone.

On the bottom plate, from the top middle in a clockwise. 
Maple pound cake;
Wasanbon sugar roll cake ("Wasanbon" is a type of sugar similar to brown sugar);
Blueberry tart.

中央から時計回りに、
メープルパウンドケーキ
和三盆糖のロールケーキ
ブルーベリーのタルト

I liked the roll cake the most but other 2 mini confectionery were good.

Berry x berry jelly and clotted cream.

Summer high tea plate's details.
From the farthest item to the closest one:
Mango short cake;
Montpellier;
L.I.T. jelly (I don't remember what's in it but she mentioned some sort of alcohol, and for the cocktail called L.I.T. contains sake, sakura liquor, and peach tree);
Sacher cake; and
Caramel banana puff.

奥から手前の順に、
マンゴーの甘味と口溶けの良い生クリームのショートケーキ
香り豊かなバニラムース キャラメルクリームとアプリコットゼリー
エル・アイ・ティーゼリー （中身が何だったか記憶にない。。。何かしらお酒が入っているらしい）
ラズベリーとダークチョコレートのサッシェ
練乳キャラメルクリームとバナナのシュークリーム

I was too busy to remember to take close shots of mango short cake and montpellier, but other 3 desserts are below.

L.I.T. Jelly.
I didn't taste any alcoholic beverage in it but it's a kind of refreshing and I loved the pink color.

Sacher cake.
It was a dense and heavy chocolate cream cake.
The sponge itself had chocolate flavor but also there're some layers of rich chocolate and topped with really thick chocolate and a piece of raspberry.

Caramel banana puff.
The puff was crispy but soft and caramel sauce was bitter and sweet.
Banana inside of the puff was sweet and added another texture to it.

I ordered another drink.

My second drink was Tsukigase oolong tea.

According to the menu, it's a premium Japanese green tea "Yamato-Cha" Nara, Inooka.

"Yamato-cha" is high quality, aromatic green tea grown in the mountains of Nara prefecture. 

Enjoy the wonderful scent and wholesome flavour."

When it's brought, I was surprised to see to have it in a wine glass.

Actually it's easy to see the color of the tea!

It tasted close to green tea; it didn't have the signature bitterness.

However, it had a great aftertaste with fresh flavor.

While having tea sets, waitresses were coming and providing other petit sweets and delicacies on wooden displays and it's part of the afternoon tea and high tea set.

As same as the drinks, you can get as many as you'd like.

Today, they had the following and detailed are followed. --- I took all the items they brought so I think I tried all kinds.

Salmon mousse

Smooth salmon mousse wrapped with fresh salmon topped with mini tomato, caper, and olive oil.

Shrimp toast

Served with shrimp rice cracker at the bottom.

It was moist, salty, and soft. --- This was really really good. I even got another plate.

Chorizo wrap

Chorizo sausage was wrapped with soft taco shell (tortilla) and topped with an edamame, corns, and zucchini.

I thought chorizo would be spicy but it's not.

It was a regular pork sausage but the wrap was crispy outside and soft inside.

Edamame, corns, and zucchini had interesting textures respectively.

Pumpkin mousse

It was surprisingly smooth as if it was whipped cream.

I wish it had some sort of kick like saltiness or spiciness from a pinch of salt or cracked black pepper.

Lemon madeleine

It's a mini lemon madeleine.

It had fresh lemon flavor and sweetness at the same time.

Earl grey madeleine

It had a great tea flavor and it was less sweet than lemon one.

White chocolate cake

It's a fragile cake and it's a little bit dry and hard to say it's moist.

The texture was between scone and cake, I'd say.

Pineapple guimauve

At the bottom, there'a piece of pineapple and top, it's guimauve.

It was a soft marshmallow and it disappeared when I put in my mouth.

Pineapple jelly

It's served with coconut milk jelly.

Pineapple wasn't sour to compare with the guimauve and pineapple on a skewer.

Coconut flavor was so strong that I couldn't smell much pineapple scent in it.

This is a chocolate bouchee

It's always on the display and I love this so every time I come to Peak Lounge, I take this.

Usually it's cold and I like to eat this cold.

It's nice to have sweet and salty petit foods while enjoying afternoon tea and high tea.

A waitress brought me a shaved ice which was a part of high tea set.

I chose mango syrup and it's served on the side.

The shaved ice was soft, fluffy, and fine.

Cut mango was served together.

The syrup was much thicker and it was like puree, so I'd say it's not syrup, but it's mango puree.

It was really thick and dense in a good way and I loved this "syrup."

My third drink was Original blend. (No photo)
It was refreshing black tea as it didn't have much bitterness.
I mostly drink black tea without adding sugar or milk, this might have been the first English tea I didn't taste any bitter taste.

My first high tea experience was nice but I still like afternoon tea set as I can get salty food and sweet foods at the same time.

This shaved ice is available only end of August.

3,900 JPY (tax included) + 13% of service charge = 4,407 JPY


Peak Lounge in Park Hyatt Tokyo / パークハイアット東京のピークラウンジ
41F in Park Hyatto Tokyo
3-7-1, Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo

東京都新宿区西新宿3-7-1
パークハイアット東京41階

On Weekdays, 2:00PM - 5:00PM
On weekends, 12:00PM - 5:00PM

平日： 14:00 - 17:00
土日祝：12:00 - 17：00

They take reservation.
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