You might’ve seen the it on the news or on social media: A mom took her kid the UK’s pavilion to Expo 2025 to enjoy his favorite thing: afternoon tea. He’s an afternoon tea aficionado and he’s looked forward to the real thing. A true British afternoon tea.
What does he get? Disappointment. Far fewer deserts than advertised and a paper cup with some hot water and a tea bag.
Thankfully the bad press and criticism resulted in a quick response from the UK and an improved afternoon tea service.
It was while Dude and I were discussing the incident that Dude asked me, “Would you want the afternoon tea at Expo?”
Nope. That thing costs 5,000 yen, which is comparable to afternoon tea at a swanky hotel lounge in town. I’d much rather enjoy my first ever afternoon tea service there.
Turns out that Dude has never actually experienced an afternoon tea service, either.
So we decided to go out on a nice afternoon tea date in Nagoya.
Choosing our Afternoon Tea Date Location
Neither of us had any experience in this area, so we started with what we knew.
We celebrated our 5th anniversary in Nagoya a few years ago by staying at the Mitsui Garden Hotel Nagoya Premier and went to relax enjoy hot drinks and cake at the Lobby Lounge Scenery at the Marriott Nagoya Associa. This was probably the first time we noticed the tea service sets. We didn’t get it, but we definitely noticed the huge tiered dessert plates.
Originally, we thought about going with Marriott’s service, but a quick search on Google told us that Marriott was not the best, The Strings Hotel had the current top afternoon tea service.
We went with that.
Afternoon Tea in the New York Lounge
The Strings Hotel has several different restaurants and lounges. Afternoon tea is can be reserved in the New York Lounge from 11AM to 7:30PM.
Prices range from about 4,700 yen to 8,500 yen depending on whether you’ll be dining on a weekday or weekend and what plan you choose. They have a lot of plans. Unfortunately, you’ll need to be literate in Japanese or have a friend who is handle everything because while most of The Strings site is also in English, the afternoon tea information is only available in Japanese.
We chose the Green Tea and Strawberry set with all you can drink regular tea selection and one cup of the Mariage Freres tea per person with the additional special dessert: a matcha mont blanc. Dude loves mont blanc. Before you get too focused on the green tea and strawberry thing, their selection changes through the year. This set is available from 4/26-6/30, 2025.
All that swankiness cost 6,522 yen. Not bad, especially compared to what the UK was serving at Expo at first.
Seating in the lounge all face a huge window looking out at the lovely marriage chapel. We were lucky enough to see the bride and groom’s march down the steps after their wedding.
Our seat was a bit unfortunate. We were placed in a far corner where we could barely see the window – literally the only seat with this problem. But we mostly came to chow down on cake and enjoy the tea, so it was alright.
Wrap up
While our seating location was a bit unfortunate, the sofa was plush and extremely comfortable and the art and decorations were lovely. The sweets were top notch and I, a great lover of tea, was pleased by the selection.
The one thing that really bothered was when they served black tea in teapots with the bag in. This didn’t happen with every tea, but enough for me make me frown. When I’m paying to have my tea served, I do not approve of being served DIY tea, especially when I am not provided with a small dish to place the tea bag on after it’s done steeping. This is extremely common at cafes that focus on coffee, but I was not expecting it here.
I suspect that they wanted you to be able to admire the brand of tea, but over-steeped tea is not good tea.
Was it worth it, though? Yes. Absolutely. I’d do it again.