If you’re looking for a scrumptious afternoon tea but don’t have the means or time to go to England, have no fear! There are several good tea salons in the Bay Area that have a lot to offer.

In the past few years, I’ve visited a few tea rooms in San Francisco (Lovejoy’s, Crown and Crumpet, Samovar). While each has its following, and are appealing for different reasons, (location, food, atmosphere) today, I want to share with you a tea room in the East Bay: The English Rose Tea Room.

Located in Pleasanton, The English Rose is a small, charming, traditional tea room with a wide selection of teas and sweet and savory bites. I went there on a Saturday with a friend to celebrate our 25th birthdays. A reservation is highly recommended (especially on a weekend), as they only seat people at 11 am,1 pm and 3 pm. A note on calling them: if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. I think I called them about five times the day before until I finally got someone on the phone. It was worth it though – someone had just cancelled last minute and I was able to snag a table for us!

On weekends, they only serve the Queen’s Menu ($32), which consists of a selection of sandwiches, savory pastry puffs, a scone, fruits, petit fours and sweet mini pies. There were a lot of children (mostly little girls, decked out in their fluffiest dresses), but there were also a few tables of women in their 30s. Children have their own mini afternoon tea menus. On the weekdays, they have a tiered menu, starting at $25.

My favorite thing about this place is how much tea you can have. With each Queen’s tea comes one pot of tea, but we can change the pots of tea as many times as we want! The only rule is that we have one pot per person, at one time. The pots are quite large, so there was more than enough for us to trade and taste each other’s selections. We ended up trying the English Rose blend, a chocolate tea and an herbal ginger. At $32 per person (before tip), I appreciated that we could try as many teas as we wanted! 🙂

Finally, perhaps not entirely appropriate, I need to mention the bathroom. It’s super cute! Going along with the rest of the salon decor, it has a lot of floral prints and designs – even the spare toilet paper rolls are made into flower shapes!

So the next time you’re in the mood for some afternoon tea, head on over to The English Rose!