I guess it was about time that I start testing out these high tea places in Perth for the upcoming hen’s night (or day) I’m supposed to be organising for my cousin’s wedding.

First up is Origins located inside the Pan Pacific Hotel. For $39 a head you get a selection of sweet and savoury treats plus unlimited tea or coffee and you can try different sorts of tea while you’re at it. Of course prices go up if you want to have some bubbly as well.

The ambiance is very nice inside – spacious, well lit, and very modern. I went my trusty partner in crime, Auntie C, and we chose a table with a pool view. A few minutes into sitting and we realised we should have just asked for a table with no views. The pool view we had was not a pretty sight; like a Bali holiday gone wrong.

It didn’t take long for us to choose our teas. They have the regular English breakfast, Earl Grey, Orange Pekoe those sort of teas but we both opted for something different (in my case at least). I had the Red African Sun tea while Auntie C had the Darjeeling tea. The teapots were huge and we started wondering how we are supposed to change our tea flavours halfway with so much leftover still sitting in the pot. But anyway that’s a problem for later.

We started off with a high tea “appetizer” as I’d like to call it since it did not come together with the other tiered food.

From left to right -

• Truffle infused custard – very minimal truffle taste but otherwise a cute (and smart if they provided smaller spoons) way to serve the custard
• Pea soup with mint foam – soup hardly had any taste
• Fig and brie mousse en croute - you can never go wrong with figs and brie right? Now if only this was a little bit bigger

Then came the tiered treats.

A closer look at each plate..

Top tier: fruit scones, jam, and cream – delicious!!

Middle tier: savoury treats

• Smoked salmon and cucumber mini bagels – taste is good but bagels are too hard
• Roasted vegetables and goat’s cheese finger sandwiches – light and refreshing. I am more thankful that the goat’s cheese is not very prominent
• Spinach and cumquat tart – needs more spinach and needs more taste. Tasted like an underseasoned plain quiche with a hint of cumquat peel.
• WA king prawns and dipping sauce – fresh prawns with a light dipping sauce, something like a cross between tartare and thousand island dressing

Bottom tier: sweet treats

• Carrot cake – underwhelming, really. I had one bite and left the rest. It doesn’t take like carrot cake and is too dry for a carrot cake.
• Tiramisu – not too bad; creamy and had enough coffee taste
• Sable chocolate and orange cake – Auntie Ching did not like this at all. I, on the other hand, liked it although it was way too sweet. Both flavours do go well togther.
• Lemon verbena tart – this did not look like a tart at all. It looked and tasted more like an overly dense friand with a non-tangy lemon goo on top. I still am not sure what this was supposed to taste like.

We changed our teas to the Strawberry Tea before diving into the sweet treat. I must say that the teas were good.

Staff is very friendly and would come to your table from time to time to ask if everything is ok or not, or if you want to have more tea.

High Tea here is a hit and miss. I guess this venue is to be crossed off my list now because I don’t feel that the bride nor the guests would be too impressed.

My rating: 5.5/10