The White Heron Tea & Gifts — Restaurant in New Port Richey

I believe they impressed on a 1 out of 3 on the high tea. I have been to a good number of tea rooms in my time collectively and I have to say this was the scarcest dessert plate I have ever seen and some of the desserts were good and some were to be desired. The scones were very very dry, and I usually love scones, but I did not care for either of them. And now for the one out of three, the sandwiches were good I will say that. Best way to describe the decor was modern, elegant, clean-cut and quaint. It has a Better Homes and Gardens meets Tea Room kind of feel to it. Silver, gray, white, and turquoise seem to be the color scheme here with white-washed effects. If you're hoping for a Victorian or Old World Victorian type of feel this would not be the place for you. Sidenote, upon being seated and starting our high tea at the very first cup of tea, when I went to add sugar there was a lump in my sugar from dampness and there was a hair in my sugar. When brought to the server's attention they apologized and said they would get us a new one but did not return with a new one, another staff member assisted us by giving us a sugar canister from another table. And lastly, I found it in very poor taste that they started frying up bacon in the back room during our high tea which permeated throughout the building (though not very big), but I found it in poor taste since high teas are almost always prepared with a reservation prior cooking is not usually done at the time and not that type of cooking. It's like smelling Chinese food when you sit down in an Italian restaurant for an Italian meal, it just kind of messes you up.... I have had nicer experiences for a better price but it is a local place if you hail from the New Port Richey area, so considering I didn't have to drive too far, all in all...

The tea room itself was very clean, sophisticated and beautifully set up. The gift shop was great, I liked that they have William Dean truffles! That was cool! The service was great too, our server was Dawn, she was very nice, checked in often and we appreciated that. The tea that was served was decent, my Earl Grey was very weak tasting, not sure why but it was the only tea at the table we didn’t like.

The food was ok. We got cucumber sandwiches (very little cucumber & dill and too much cream cheese), Turkey sandwiches with some type of relish (I didn’t try this but a few people in my party liked it ), chicken salad (very bland; there was nothing in it except chicken, usually you have some sort of relish or grapes or almonds, nothing) and a tomato Basil (I didn’t eat this either, but everyone else said this was the best sandwich they offered). We got two types of “scones”, I say “scones” because anyone who has had a scone before knows that scones should be dense and sort of dry. These legitimately had the texture of a pancake and were very airy on the inside. This was not a scone. They offered two: plain and peach with white chocolate, neither were good and I couldn’t eat them. The texture was very off-putting. The Devonshire cream was good and the strawberry preserves were ok, just tasted like canned preserves, not fresh. The desserts were a lemon cake with some sort of cream on top (very good), a lemon curd tart (best thing they had honestly) and 4 macarons. The vanilla, lemon and raspberry macarons were good but the chocolate was very thick and almost chewy.

Overall, we will most likely not come back here for the afternoon tea, but I may come back every once in awhile to browse the shop and get some truffles! Due to their no phone policy, I did not...

This tea room was gorgeous and relaxing. Deb greeted us and Dawyne made the foods and was our server and the manager. The parking lot in the back of the building was very easy to find. The three of us came for afternoon tea. We each got to choose our own pot of tea. We chose: Blueberry pie green tea, Vanilla Rose, and Florida Mantra. They provided honey for us to use as our sweetener, which was a local honey (good for people with allergies). The 3 tier food tray came with finger sandwiches (cucumber sandwiches on white, tomato sandwiches on wheat, egg salad sandwiches on mini tarts, & chicken salad on croissants), two kinds of scones (with strawberry jam and butter), eclairs, lemon bars, and macaroons. Everything was superb! The scones were nice and soft and moist. We all decided to try each others tea so we’d get a taste of 3 kinds today. We all three chose the green tea blueberry pie as our favorite hands down. We had some food left over, so Dawyne brought us take home boxes to pack them up. We both bought 2 packages of the favorite tea (15 tea bags for $10.99) on the way out. We paid our bills and left our tips and thanked them very much. The staff was all very kind and polite and made us feel very welcome. It was such a wonderful experience and we’ll come back again. We found the best tea house in the New Port...