September 2024

Afternoon tea for 3 guests at a las vegas coffee shop with fluffy bread

The good the bad the ugly the yummy of afternoon tea, Coffee Religion, LasVegas edition

Address: 5191 W Charleston Blvd Ste 185, Las Vegas, NV 89146, United States

While on vacation we had afternoon tea for THREE people at Coffee religion. They have multiple locations in las vegas and we attended the charleston location. This is my second time coming here but the first time was more than 2 years ago. Our table was ready for us when we arrived; the look is very industrial to me. How about u? 

Apparently, you cannot book tea for one guest here at Coffee Religion, so I dragged my husband with me, instead of having a solo tea date as I had intended. We took an uber here from the strip; this venue is not in the touristy part of las vegas. Coffee Religion actually had a special in Sept where it was buy 2, get a 3rd for free so this is a “tea for 3 guests” setup you’re seeing here. Nice to have the extra food to video record but we still ended up wasting a bunch of it. Oy vey!

There were only 6 tea options here with no description, and the one my husband wanted (apricot vanilla green) wasn’t available so there were less than 6 options here which is definitely on the low side of tea options. Hopefully one From this short list would appeal to you if you go. For some reason even though we were having tea for 3 ppl, we were only permitted to choose two tea types and we went with earl grey, no surprise, and english breakfast.  They do not use antique or vintage tea cups here.

 The tea was fine but didn’t knock my socks off. It came pre-steeped but from our table it looked like loose leaf tea in tea bags which were removed before the tea pots came to our table but I can’t say for sure. 

Anyway, lets get into the good. The scones are served on a separate plate wrapped in a paper towel. I like the plating of the bird cage aesthetic that they serve the savouries and sweets on. It’s cute and nicely plated.  Looks appetizing and is the good aspect here. 

Let me tell you about the food starting with the 5 savouries. Each guest got 3 finger sandwiches and 2 savory toasts. The sandwiches were cucumber cream cheese, egg salad, and ham and cheese. One toast was pear with honey and one was avocado with egg and tomato. We swapped out the salmon b/c we don’t like salmon. We had asked for extra pear toast instead of salmon when we booked and our request was confirmed by email…. but we were given ham and cheese as a substitute instead, not sure why our request wasn’t honoured.

The sandwich bread was fresh and quite fluffy; i liked it.  The egg salad is actually “tamago” which is “Japanese Egg Sandwich”; it had some bite/spice to it so if you like a mild spice, you would enjoy this.  The ham and cheese tasted good to me. The avocado toast was good too; i tasted some garlic and I liked that flavour. And I love this pear toast; I remember it from my last time I came here which I why I asked for more of it instead of salmon. Overall, these savoury bites are good and tasted fresh. 

Onto the next course or tier - the scones. They were served on a separate plate with a napkin around them to keep them warm.  Each guest got one scone (and I do prefer when two scones are served per guest but these scones were big & fairly dense so this is probably enough for an average person) and this one was pumpkin white chocolate and not lemon poppyseed like the menu said. Likely because this was the end of Sept menu with a new fall menu starting soon. The scone was served with a shared pot of strawberry jam, some type of creamy mixture, and we asked for some butter too - and we were given margarine instead. This is certainly not enough accompaniments for 3 scones; I know I’m a broken record and of course I can ask for more but we didn’t eat all 3 scones so it wasn’t an issue but note for your experience here that I do not feel this is enough scone accompaniments for 3 larger sized scones.

The scones broke in half nicely and were fresh and soft. Pumpkin isn’t my favourite flavour and I was looking forward to the lemon poppy but the pumpkin was fine.  The cream was not clotted cream but tasted okay. If it was a mascarpone mixture they did a good job to mute the tart flavour without making it sweet. It tasted the same as the pear toast creamy mixture. Honestly, I’m not sure what it was but it was fine for me. 

The sweets here were not the greatest, we can classify those as “the bad” here - First, they didn’t match the printed menu but missing items were swapped out so, whatever - We each received a sliver of blueberry cake, a tart shell filled with cream which was the same cream as the top of the chocolate choux cream puff. The tart had no flavour but the tart shell was still crisp so there was a texture. I went and got myself a plastic fork from the cutlery napkin area so I could eat like the chocolate choux cream puff like a civilized queen. It was by far the best of the 3 sweets. I think a 4th sweet, something more substantial and without a creamy texture would improve this sweet showing. 

The service here was also “Bad” - no-one came back to check on us to see if how our food was tasting, if we needed anything, or if we wanted a refresh to our tea pots, maybe I wanted a fork (I did), nor even to bring us a bill. Even though there were more ppl here having afternoon tea than drinking coffee - their level of service is a tim horton’s coffee shop (or dunken donuts if you’re in the states); quite a subpar service that’s expected at an afternoon tea service. Yes, we still left a cash gratuity on the table after paying at the counter.

The ugly - This venue is pretty lacklustre for afternoon tea. This is a clearly a coffee shop as the name suggests.  I have been here before so I wasn’t surprised but this definitely isn’t a place to celebrate a special occasion. It’s a cold cementy type decor.  More of a venue to have a casual afternoon tea experience. The table beside us also having afternoon tea were studying for a test so if you’re into a very casual tea experience at a coffee shop, this is your place. 

The yummy - The pear toast, followed by the scone, were the best bites here for me!

This afternoon tea experience costs $39 USD which is $53 CAD PER PERSON plus tax and gratuity. This is $11 USD LESS than the cobblestone cottage tea last posted; you can see that this one is much better value, especially on the savory side of things and note it is also an off-strip location so should be perfectly comparable regarding building type and being off the Vegas strip. This price is okay for me although i’d like to see authentic clotted cream a 2nd scone, and a 4th sweet offered here - but this is much better value, food wise than cobblestone cottage previously reviewed. Given, all factors and comparisons, my Queen of Afternoon tea rating is 3 out of 5. Or as a keith leigh rating, since this was in vegas, it would be a 3.2 / 5.