The Tea Around Town Tour Bus
When I started my Afternoon Tea blog I had several people message me about this new sightseeing experience in NYC where afternoon tea is served on a tour bus!
A Little Bit of History: Tea Around Town is a new experience in NYC brought to you by TopView Sightseeing company. TopView does a number of tours in NYC including hop on/hop off buses, cruises, and multiple day tours. They have quite a few packages for NYC visitors.
The Experience: Tea Around Town offers a standard or premium ticket. Since I wanted to get the full experience, I did pay for the premium ticket. Premium has some additional perks which I will break down later on.
You are given a place to meet, where my ticket had us meet at Union Square. The bus wasn’t there yet, but there were attendants ready to check us in. One scanned our ticket, another gave us a flower with our table number. When the bus arrived, boarding was pretty seamless since we already have assigned seats and our ticket was scanned. However, premium ticket members were supposed to get priority boarding. This did not happen. When the bus came everyone just huddled together and first come first serve. It wasn’t a big deal since we had assigned seating, however if the company is going to say this is apart of the premium experience, then they should do that.
Photo credit: TopView Sightseeing
The first thing you are going to notice as you enter is how the bus is BEAUTIFULLY decorated. It has a pink flowery ascetic theme that goes throughout. It’s the perfect place to enjoy some afternoon tea. They even make the in bus restroom cute. They really put in some effort there.
When you find your table number the tea tiers are already set up. So just to note, don’t expect warm scones or sandwiches. It’s just not feasible for an experience like this. The tiers were the traditional three tiers: top being petite deserts, they had the middle tier with the savory items, and the bottom consisting of mini scones. Instead of a tea cup you get a tumbler in an embedded cub holder to prevent spills when the bus is on the move. We were also given mini bottles of water. If you have the premium option you get the choice of rose or champagne as well. Our glass was only filled about a third of the way. I’m sure we could have asked for more but we didn’t have time (more on that later!)
Let me break down the menu. So everyone received a cucumber sandwich, an egg salad watercress sandwich, a pesto and sundried tomato frittata, a plain scone, and three mini desserts (a chocolate mousse tarte, and a macaron). The premium menu included 3 additional savory items, 3 additional desserts and 1 additional scone! The extra savory items included a wagyu beef tartare, a mini lobster roll, and smoked salmon and cream cheese on pumpernickel. For the extra desserts, we received, a pumpkin cheesecake, an eclair, and a lemon meringue. In addition to the plain scone you get a cranberry scone.
Now for the tea service. One thing I did not realize was that this is a tea tasting. So unlike most afternoon teas where you select one tea, the servers came around with three different teas and fills your tumbler about one third (depending on your server, for one tea we were asked if we wanted a half cup or just a tasting). On my ride we had pumpkin, peppermint, blueberry. I appreciated the uniqueness of the tea choices but wished the tasting was explained. At first I thought our server was just giving us a sample. There’s not a lot of time for refills on a tea you like, or even just to finish the tea you have, as many people on my ride had to pour out what they were drinking to get the next tea. (Or chug it down like I did!) I also noted online that it lists more than 3 teas but everyone on our bus received the same three teas and we were not told of any alternates if we didn’t like one that was offered. Online it also lists coffee as an option. My party didn’t ask for it nor did anyone on the bus that I could hear, so I am not sure if coffee is actually available.
Online the experience says its 90 minutes which includes the 75 minute tour/tea service and then 15 minute boarding and departing. The ride I was on lasted only about 1 hour from the time the bus left to the time the bus parked back at our location. This only gave about 45 minutes to enjoy our food and drinks because around 15 minutes before we reached the end, our servers started collecting our stuff, and asked if we wanted boxes. At this point, no more tea was served and we could not ask for refills. Somehow I managed to eat all my food (and premium was generous with the 6 savory bites, 6 desserts, and 2 scones), but I didn’t feel like it was a leisurely experience. It did feel rushed, but everyone around me seemed to enjoy it even with the quick pace.
This experience also included a tour of New York! Your tour guide, if she or he was like mine, will also sing while your going from location to location which was very nice and relaxing. They sang in a low tone so it was almost like lounge music that added nicely to the experience. We started at Bryant Park and hit a number of “big” NYC hotspots like Time Square and Rockefeller Center, However, because of all the conversations happening on the bus, unless you are near the tour guide, you will have difficulty hearing what they are saying. But there are still sites to enjoy and if its not your first time in NYC, you likely care less about the commentary and just want to enjoy your surroundings.
As of Today: Depending on the day and whether you choose regular or premium, the experience can range from $64-$119 per person. I noticed that the premium experience will always be $40 more expensive per person (so if regular is $75 one day, premium will be $115). This is a luxury experience and it’s priced that way. It is more expensive because you are not just paying for the tea service, you are paying for a tour of NYC.
My Rating: 4/5 tea cups! For uniqueness and ascetics and the quality of the food and tea service it was a 5/5. But the rushed pacing of the experience, the difficulty in hearing the tour, and it not truly being a 90 (or even 75) minute experience as advertised, brings it to a 4/5 for me. The tour guides are great, really friendly, and wonderful singers, so this is nothing against them, but if you did this experience specifically for the tour part you may be disappointed (unless you are near enough to the guide to hear!)
I think this would be a beautiful experience during Christmas to go around NYC while it’s all decked out for the holidays! You don’t need to hear to enjoy the beauty of the city during the Christmas season.
Overall, I did enjoy this experience although there were a few bumps in the road (both figuratively and literally! There were a couple times everyone needed to grab their plates and silverware because we hit a bump or took a sharp turn). Everyone on the bus seemed to really have a good time and it was something fun and definitely unique to do especially if you have little ones or visitors in town!
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