Camellia's Sin Tea Parlor, Carlisle, PA

Once Angelica was home from college, and the hustle and bustle of the holiday season was pretty well under control, we were able to schedule an Afternoon Tea at a local tea room, Camellia's Sin Tea Parlor in Carlisle, PA. An easy drive from Mechanicsburg we eagerly anticipated a very relaxing Sunday before family would arrive for the Christmas holiday.

A signature of Camellia's is their wide variety of beautiful place settings, each table unique. We enjoyed the winter snowmen at our table. Since the tea room was aflutter of activity, I wasn't able to snap the other coordinated table settings, but a post from 2018 can be found here that includes a peek at some of the other table settings.

Once we ordered our tea, a choice of soup options were offered including Wild Mushroom (Susanna's selection), Butternut Squash (Angelica selected this soup) and a Tomato Basil Bisque (Nancy's choice) shown here. Served piping hot, we all enjoyed our choices.

A lovely salad of seasonal greens, fresh fruit, feta cheese and a poppyseed dressing was presented next. This was fresh and tasty and just the right portion size. We sampled a variety of teas during our visit here from Snowflake (always a favorite) to a spicy Nutcracker.

Camellia's offers a choice of scones, and you are served one. Knowing this, when we made our reservations, we requested extra scones because we didn't want to decide among the selection of different flavors! The selection included Andes chocolate mint scone, pumpkin spice, white chocolate cranberry almond, caramel apple cinnamon and a savory rosemary cheddar scone. We enjoyed them all! And were quite happy to be able to savor each one. Cream and curd were included with the scones.

A tiered tray plated with sandwiches and desserts completed the tea service. The sandwiches included a Cucumber tea sandwich, Gruyer mushroom and caramelized onion tart, Tiny Tim's Christmas tree bites, and Turkey breast in a cranberry orange muffin. The miniature desserts featured Snow Fairy Cupcake, Decadent Chocolate Cheesecake, Sticky Toffee Pudding, and Traditional Thumbprint Cookies.

The tea room is located on Pomfret Street in Carlisle which has a nice variety of little shops and galleries. They coordinate activities throughout the year, have painted statues and artistic touches to discover. It was a mild day, so we enjoyed 'shopping the block'. and found these clever wings on the side of a brick building waiting for a photo opportunity.