Inland Café & Tea — Restaurant in Coeur d'Alene

I have mixed feelings. Cute place and I love the concept. I could tell they were trying hard. The food and the tea were just a little lackluster. I think some minor changes would make this place amazing.

Appearance: overall adorable. I liked that you could pick your own tea cup. The tired trays were fun. All the food was very cutesy.

Tea: huge menu, but almost entirely fruit teas. So if you drink traditional tea you are mostly out of luck. I think there were only five on the whole menu and two were English and Irish breakfast. I will say, that because the leaves are left in the pot, fruit teas will hold up better and will have less issues with over steeping. Ended up with an oolong that was very nice.

Food: I did the high tea, so I had a variety. A few things were really good, a few really bad, and mostly it was meh. Salad was boring, but had really amazing house croutons. Soup had every vegetable...and cold cuts...what a choice. Scones were very tasty...but they were also completely wrong. I'm not sure what recipe that were using, but they were basically like cake. I get that American style scones are very different from English ones, but these were cakey even for American ones. I was a little surprised they did the American style when it's supposed to be for high tea with toppings. Good, but odd choice and execution. Toppings for the scones were absolutely the best tasting thing we got. Only got a small amount, especially considering the huge size of the scones. Another issue was because the scones were not the more traditional biscuit, it really muted the flavor of the toppings which was a shame. Sandwiches were fine but boring. Each one was basic bread cut outs with maybe 3 other ingredients inside. Seasoning would go a long way here. Bread pudding was probably the second best thing after the scone toppings. Lots of cinnamon and creamy. The peanut butter cup brownie bites were bad. I don't know how they made them sticky chewy and dusty at the same time. Unpleasant. Worst was the raspberry bites. Not sure how to describe the flavor, but it was unfortunate.

Service: staff was very pleasant and friendly. Our particular server did struggle with traditional tea, and when asked to describe the flavor she said it was "tasteless" She came back later with a flavor guide, so good on her, but oh man maybe don't talk about it like that lol.

I'm just some rando, and it's not often I feel this way, but I really wanted to just go in the back and tell them to change a couple of things. For the most part, everything was fine. And that's the thing, minor changes could make it really great. I really want to have a fantastic little tea cafe, but it's currently a bit mid. I don't want to rag on this place at all, I had a fun time and other people seem fine with everything. I'll probably go back at some point to see if any changes end up happening. It's so close to being...

My family, in our quest to visit all 50 states, traveled the northwest over the last couple of weeks. We love a good tea room and found Inland Café & Tea on an internet search as we were driving to Coeur d'Alene. We knew we were going to Coeur d'Alene for our Idaho experience, but we did not know exactly what we would do there. We chose to begin our adventure here for high tea! It did not disappoint. My wife and I have had tea at tea rooms all over the East Coast and Inland Café & Tea ranks among the best for us.

The food was well prepared and presented but most importantly delicious! The scones were a little different than we are used to, but they were fantastic. One thing I look for in a tea room is their tea selection, and this selection was extensive with a flavor for everyone. Personally, I like my tea to have a bold flavor and aroma without adding sugar. Our server, Jamie, was super helpful in pointing us in the right direction. The pistachio pu'erh and lemon sugar cookie teas were our favorite! Drinking the pistachio pu'erh tea was like wrapping up in a warm blanket and eating a buttery pistachio baked good. Drinking the lemon sugar cookie black tea was like eating a lemon square and finishing it with a shortbread cookie. I am not usually a lemon tea fan, but this one was off the charts delicious! Jamie was able to help us with our selections because she had tasted many of the teas herself, which was very important as you will see in my next comments.

The only negative things that we can say about our experience come from comparison to other tea rooms. When you order high tea, it comes with a bottomless pot of tea, which is standard, but here that applies to only one flavor. What if you choose wrong? Fortunately, we were blessed with Jamie, who listened to our flavor preference and got us to the best choices first! We did order some other teas to try and found others that we enjoyed and then purchased to take home. I will be ordering online when we run out for sure. They only sell the loose tea in 3 oz bags. I wish they had sample size bags that had enough for one cup so I could taste it before committing to a 3 oz bag of something that may not be what I prefer, especially if I am paying to ship it back to MD.

The final thing we thought was odd was that they steeped the loose leaf tea right in the pot. They seemed to time the steeping of the tea before bringing the pot out, but then without removing the tea leaves, it continues steeping, which causes the tea to get more bitter. They do provide a trainer on the table to pour your cup to catch the tea leaves.

Even though we would have preferred a few things to be different, we thoroughly enjoyed this experience. Unfortunately, we will not be back to Idaho anytime soon as our quest to visit all 50 states continues, but we will be ordering...

What an excellent Tea Cafe! Of course you can get salads and sandwiches, but we went for the high teas experience. We very much enjoyed the Emperess Tea! The scones were amazing, the 5 different tea sandwiches were fantastic and the petite desserts were excellent, especially the bread pudding! There are so many teas to choose from and everyone I had were wonderfully made! I cannot sing their praises high enough! The food is amazing, the staff are so nice and pleasant, and the atmosphere is so relaxing and enjoyable. An all-around wonderful experience that I most highly recommend for e everyone! A little girls tea party (they have a special setup for that); a ladies tea, a book club tea experience (especially awesome if you're currently reading Victorianor steampunk era novels), a Bachelorette party, Mother's Day, birthdays, the list is endless! I want to start up a ladies society that dress up (possibly in Victorian styled outfits), enjoy a lovely tea there, then all play Whist and Bunco some evening! How fun would that be?!? Go, enjoy, and you will be so happy...