Brown Palace Hotel Edit

The Brown Palace is beautiful. This must be said, first and foremost, it is beautiful and historical and a landmark in Denver. Tea is served in the atrium in the afternoons and it is a lovely place to sip a cup of tea — one imagines not much has been altered in 100 years. The silver has been polished so many times that the hotel’s insignia has practically worn away. The hotel also has its own signature tea blend and its own lovely bone china pattern (the latter sadly not for sale). All of this adds up to a very distinctive experience.

There are three tea services on offer, one featuring chocolate treats, one accompanied by a Kir Royale, and the “signature tea.” You get a nice selection of sandwiches and sweets and scones with real Devonshire cream (shipped in from England) but it is true the tea selection is a little sparse. Also, there is no way to remove the tea leaves once they have steeped long enough. If you stay on, the servers will just pour more hot water in your pot with your spent leaves. As I already am overly sensitive to bitterness, this isn’t a positive to me. However it is also true that there is a pianist or a harpist to accompany your meal and the splendor of the hotel makes tea at the Brown Palace something I recommend to every visitor.

The setting is beautiful however, your choice of teas are very limited. They pretty much bring out your food and tea and disappear. It wasn’t bad food or tea, just average everything. I am used to having a tea time with 3 or 4 different teas to drink and courses to go with each one. Expensive for what you get.

This is the ultimate old-world tea experience. When I visited, there was a pianist playing while we sipped our tea, and the setting is just amazing!