July 2024

A quick jaunt from philly into new jersey for our 5th afternoon tea in 5 days!

Jane's Tea House
602 Station Ave, Haddon Heights, NJ 08035, United States

The good, the bad, the ugly, and the yummy of afternoon tea Haddon Heights, NJ edition.

Our final tea tour stop on this trip took us over the bridge from pilly to Haddon Heights, NJ to have afternoon tea for two at Jane's tea house. stick around until the end for my star rating.

The Good

we were able to get a last minute, same day reservation so that was nice as we didn't have to plan ahead. 

we were served an iced tea to start which was nice b/c it was SO hot and we got to chose a pot of hot tea each. There were ample teas to choose from and it looked like loose leaf put into tea bags by the staff so that was good.  I chose the caramel cherry cheesecake and my husband chose the strawberry daquirri. Both were black teas and both tasted fine.

there was a starter pasta salad with chunks of cheese and olives in it. my husband ate most of his. It was fine for me but i was saving myself for the full tea experience! starters rarely impress me.

then our teir was served. i'll be giving u the food details this time! each guest got a corn bread quiche tart, a little chicken salad wrap, an cucumber sandwich and a peach and ham sandwich. These 4 savouries weren't great and weren't horrible. The cucumber sammy didn't have cream cheese and it might have even been margarine on the bread b/c it was kinda yellow. I did eat it though.... The peach sandwhich was canned peaches so fresh peaches would've been preferrable. I couldn't even taste the ham being such a thin slice. The corn bread quiche tasted very good; it was my favourite bite and my husband let me eat his too! thanks hubby!

Each guest got two scones, a lemon poppyseed and a savory caprese scone. They were served with a sweet creamy mixture, a peach mango compote, and a savory butter for the savory scone. 

I liked how they had thought about the fact that sweet cream and compote wouldn't work for the savory scone and so they included the butter; good job! The lemon poppyseed was too dry for my liking; this was either a day old scone or over baked.  but the caprese scone was fresher and tasted pretty good. The creamy mixture for the lemon scone, was quite sweet - almost like a whipped icing. It was edible but definitely not clotted cream at all. The scones were maybe a 5 or 6 out of 10 if you consider them both and the accompaniments.

for the sweets tier, we each received 4 sweet samplings. a orange mousse, a smores tart, an apricot mango tart and a blasted macaron. these sweets didn't wow me b/c there was too much whipped cream or Chantilly cream, 3/4 of the sweets had it. The orange mousse wasn't orange-y enough. The tartlette was the same compote as served with the scones which was kinda meh seeing the same spread twice. And the smores cup tart thing was marshmellow fluff with hershey syrup on top. Points on that one for creativity but it didn't taste great to me. a lovely rich ganache on top would've been nice. And macarons, damn i hate seeing these at afternoon tea, enough already - get more creative!  My husband ate both of them though. So while the qty of sweets was fine they were lacking variety and flavours and quality.

To summarize the good here there was corn tart and the savoury scone and um, the tea. both the tea pots and the iced tea.

The Bad

I'd say the quality here is lacking. As I mentioned, canned peaches, seeing the same compote on two teirs, hersey's syrup, commercial macarons available to anyone who shops at Costco. The lemon scone was dry and the fake clotted cream. So overall, I'd say some areas lack quality here which I'd say was the bad aspect.

The Ugly

This venue wasn't ugly but the windows, floors, and gift shop area need a good cleaning. It was kinda dingy. My grandma wouldn't like that! This is a big venue so might be good for bridal or baby showers if you live near here!

The Yummy

The only yummy bite here FOR ME was the corn bread quiche tart on the savoury tier. it was unique, crunchy tart shell, soft interior.  i liked it best.

This afternoon tea costs $33 USD per person. The menu suggests this is special pricing for the summer? I dunno.... I would say the quality of the food doesn't match this price point. consider this: It was only $3 less than the perfect rating afternoon tea from yesterday and at it's regular price of $36 its the same price as yesterdays top notch tea. Is it equal quality and quantity to that experience? Absolutely not!

Based on all these thoughts, in my expert opinion, My “Queen of Afternoon Tea” rating is 2.5 out of 5 stars.