Tea Room Review: Afternoon Tea at Rosemont Manor in Berryville Virginia

A Note from Dani: Xak and I started Scones and Doughns in August 2023, but we’ve been baking and visiting afternoon tea rooms together for many years before that. Since this visit to Rosemont Manor took place in 2022 before we started writing Scones and Doughns, this review is not as extensive or thorough as our other tea room reviews. However, we still wanted to share our experience since it was influential in our afternoon tea journey and one of the reasons why we started this blog!

Finding a wedding venue in Northern Virginia can be really tough. Once you start doing research, you suddenly realize there are way more choices available in the area than you can possibly visit. Xak and I knew what kind of experience we wanted at our wedding: a small garden style tea party. The problem was, where could we have that in this area?

As we were doing our research for venues, I stumbled upon the Historic Rosemont Manor located in Berryville, Virginia. Xak and I had previously visited Berryville, Virginia in 2021 for afternoon tea at The Tea Cart and we loved the experience and also liked the area. To my surprise, I saw that the Rosemont Manor was only about a mile away from The Tea Cart. Although its primary function is a wedding venue, they do special teas throughout the year including one that would just so happen to be during the weekend of Valentines Day. 

Since Xak and I were deep into wedding venue hunting, why not also celebrate our Valentine’s Day with an afternoon tea and kill two birds with one stone (scone? 😄). Our visit took place on February 13, 2022.

Reservations

Since the special teas at Rosemont Manor are on select weekends, guests need to make reservations in advance. The teas are limited seating and can sell out so I would recommend booking it as soon as you can. Reservations are only available via phone and you must make a reservation at least 4 days before the date. You secure your reservation by providing a credit card number. If you need to cancel, you won’t get charged a cancellation fee as long as it’s more than 48 hours in advance. 

A few days before the event, Rosemont Manor sent us an email explaining some details about where to go when you arrive, the cancellation policy, and any special dietary requests.

Tour

The fee includes the cost of the tea, tax, gratuity, and a tour of the grounds and the house. Prior to the tea, you enter a different building called the Carriage House (typically where the wedding receptions are held), and you learn more about the history of the place including some of the famous visitors. When you check-in, you can enter your names in a drawing for a free afternoon tea visit (Nope, we didn’t win 😞). The talk before the tea took about 30 minutes and then we headed outside to walk over to the main building.

Since the grounds were covered in snow, there wasn’t much to explore outside, but I imagine the place is really beautiful during spring and fall.

the Dining Room

After the tour, we were escorted to the Manor and then taken to our tables. Each group who had attended sat at their own tables depending on the size of their group. Xak and I had a private table in the sun drenched dining room right next to the fireplace.

The dining room was beautifully decorated and seemed like a very pleasant spot to have tea. There were built in bookshelves which contained beautiful dishes, artwork, and there were fresh flowers on each table along with cloth napkins folded in the shape of a rose, menus, and place settings.

As everyone got settled at their tables, servers came around and poured out a special drink called a “Fizzle” which included cranberry juice and ginger ale. The drink was really delicious and even inspired us (a year later) to include it as our special cocktail hour drink at our wedding. Xak and I clinked our glasses with glee as we prepared for tea to be served.

The Tea

At most tea places, each guest chooses a tea flavor from a menu after you sit down. The tea is brewed and steeped and then the pot is served at your table. The servers will then refill the tea pot with hot water, or sometimes you’ll be allowed to switch out your tea for a different flavor. 

At Rosemont, there’s a pre-set tea menu for each tea event and the selection can change. For our visit, we were served the following:

• The Byrd Blend – Darjeeling and Cream Earl Grey tea, rose petals, cornflower blossoms and other natural flavors
• The Rosemont Blend – Sencha green tea, strawberry & papaya pieces, rose petals, candy pearl dragees & other natural flavorings
• Lemon Soufflé Rooibos – Luxury rooibos blended with honey-bush and lemon cream flavor

The servers walk around the rooms and serve a specific tea with each course. I felt a slight urge to chug my tea down when I saw the servers in range of my cup just to ensure I could enjoy the current flavor. There wasn’t any actual real pressure: it was just me. 😄

Food

After everyone enjoyed their Fizzle drinks, the servers came out again to bring out the food and the pots of tea.

The Savories

The first course of savories were served alongside The Byrd Blend tea. The savories were on a small two tier tray and consisted of the following:

• Open faced Heart shaped Cucumber Sandwich 
• Chicken Pot pie
• Ham Apple and Havarti sandwich

Most tea rooms I’ve visited will stick to just sandwiches for the savory course. Tea sandwiches are nice because you can use a variety of breads and fillings and they’re pretty easy to make for a large group. While I love tea sandwiches, I also really appreciate when tea rooms step outside the (sandwich) box and opt for quiches and little tartlets. 😋

However, the chicken pot pie was a new experience and I really selfishly wish more tea rooms would do something like this! I love chicken pot pie. I make it often at home for dinner (most recently during Pi Day just a few weeks ago). It’s comforting, filling, and delicious and great for a winter tea.

Open faced sandwiches aren’t my favorite since I feel like i make a big mess when I try to take a bite, but I did like the heart shape for Valentine’s Day. I always love cucumber sandwiches and I make cucumber sandwiches at almost all my afternoon teas at home. There’s only been maybe one afternoon tea I’ve attended without them.

The ham, apple, and havarti sandwich was small but I think it was a good combo. Cheese and apple sandwiches may seem a bit odd but after eating brie and apple sandwiches, I’ve learned to look forward to them. The addition of the ham also made this a little more substantial. 

The Special black tea blend was quite tasty. It went well with the milk and sugar cubes and Xak and I eagerly hoped that the server would accidentally leave their pot of tea on our table.

The Scones

After the sandwiches were done, the servers cleared the trays from the tables and brought out a plate of scones paired with the signature Rosemont Blend Green tea. I don’t put milk into green tea, but I do put sugar. I’m not a big green tea fan, but this one wasn’t bad. 

There were four scones on the plates along with mock devonshire cream and strawberry jam:

• Cheddar, Chive, and bacon (Savory)
• Creme Fraiche

The savory cheddar, chive, and bacon scone was a real delight for me since it was like an extra addition to the savory course (my favorite part of afternoon tea). Most tea rooms will opt to serve only a cream scone or a sweeter scone like blueberry or heavily sprinkled with sugar crystals so this was a nice change. It didn’t need any additional accoutrements. After our Rosemont Manor experience, Xak started researching savory scone recipes for our future teas!

The Creme fraiche scone tasted similarly to the cream scones that Xak often makes. Creme Fraiche is kind of like the European version of American Sour Cream. It’s the type of scone that you definitely want to put Devonshire cream and preserves on.

Making your own clotted cream can take several hours and most of us don’t have time for that. So when you don’t have the time, you have to take some short cuts. The “mock” part typically means the Devonshire or clotted cream is actually extra ingredients like mascarpone, cream cheese, sour cream (not creme fraiche heh), or maybe even butter mixed in with heavy cream and sugar. No, it’s not the same, however… it still tastes good.

While both scones were good, I especially enjoyed the cheddar, chive and bacon scone. It was like a baked potato minus the potato!

The Desserts

Our empty scone plates were cleared and the Lemon Soufflé Rooibos tea was served alongside another two tiered tray filled with desserts which included the following:

• Palmier
• Strawberry Mousse
• Boston Creme Tartlet

Rooibos are herbal teas, and I typically don’t drink these with milk or sugar. Honestly, I’m not sure what “lemon souffle” really tastes like, but the tea definitely had a tasty lemon flavor. I’ve always loved lemon tea and I drink it often at home. I love it so much, I even have a painting of some in my dining room. It’s no surprise that I enjoyed this tea and it was a great way to end the meal.

For the desserts, I was pleased with the selection.

Palmiers, also known as elephant ears, have similarity to croissants. Buttery, flaky, laminated pastry dough that’s cut into a very distinctive heart-like shape. I still prefer croissants more, but these are pretty good with tea (and coffee). The Boston creme tartlet had a creme/custard filling and chocolate inside, just like a bite sized piece of Boston creme pie. The strawberry mousse was smooth and served with a fresh strawberry on top. 

The desserts were a nice variety of fruity, chocolatey, and buttery pastry. A wonderful trinity of treats!

final Thoughts

I appreciated the different types of teas paired with the food being served. At most tea places, people will stick with the flavors they like best (cough English Breakfast cough) and not think much about how the tea might enhance the food you’re eating it with.

I do appreciate a good pairing (like lemon tea with lavender shortbread) and since I’m not an experienced sommelier, I do look to experts for the best recommendations. However… I also really enjoy just having my own pot of tea at my table so I can fill up my cup to my heart’s content. The food was good and the only complaint I had was that I wish there was more of it which is a compliment to the chefs!

Both Xak and I had a wonderful tea experience that day and later enjoyed exploring all the rooms in the house. Although we did not really get to see the grounds since it was heavily covered in snow, I can tell that the Rosemont Manor is quite a beautiful place. Ultimately, while we did not end up having our wedding at Rosemont Manor, we really did enjoy having afternoon tea there and I hope that we’ll be able to visit again in the future!