Hi everyone, today I’m going to review my two experiences at The Urban Tea Merchant. I want to talk about their Macarons and their Moon Festival Tea Service which I was invited to for food blogging on behalf of VancityBuzz. VancityBuzz is a growing blog that aims to share news, fashion, food, entertainment and more to Vancouver. The Urban Tea Merchant is a classy retail store and tea salon- serving quality and luxury teas. Some of their teas can be $18/100g or even up to $295/250 g of tea. That’s a pair of Marc Jacobs shoes right there!!

I cover “Macarons in Vancouver” for a Vancouver blog and I also was invited back to The Urban Tea Merchant to taste test their new Moon Festival Tea Service that they are offering from September 1- 30. To see my article on VancityBuzz, click here!

The Moon Festival Tea Service did a good integration of Asian cuisine within their tea service, while still sticking to their concept of tea.

Due to my recent re-infection with H. Pylori, I had a Choco Mint Truffle tea to accompany my meal, rather than teas (that had caffeine) that were made specifically for the tea service. I loved the tea, it was a bit sweet and had an African aroma to it. It was a roobios tea, so caffeine free! For starters, I had a petit-chou. Inside a glass cup, there were several balls of very light and fluffy bread balls- sort of like a cream puff but without the cream. Additionally, it came with Weekend in St. Tropez tea infused butter.

Time to move on the main course! There was a lot of food, and I couldn’t finish it. Inside the steamer basket were 4 multi-coloured, tea-infused pork dumplings! Delicious! I can taste the herbs (cilantro I think!) in them. It came with spicy ginger dipping sauce too.

The smoked salmon on the open sandwich, with ponzu jelly and some wasabi sauce was delicious! The wasabi sauce definitely made my hungrier as I ate. And as a lover of smoked salmon, this was pretty delicious. Too bad these were so small.

Next, I dug into these tiny “Lapsang Souchong Tea” chicken salad cones. It’s like chicken ice cream, and as delicious as ice cream. It’s a very fresh chicken dominated salad, and that sauce was amazing! There were only four of these little guys. I could have ate a mountain of these.

There were also small round pieces of sable fish on butter lettuce, with little garlic crisps on top. This was delicious, and you’re technically supposed to eat it as a mini wrap. However, I failed at wrapping these soft things, so I ended up downing the fish first, then eat the lettuce separately. Awkward…

After eating all the meaty stuff, I dove into the fruits, truffles, chocolate covered strawberries, and the mooncake!

I had the Pagoda mooncake- infused with Moonlit Night tea in the lotus paste, and it has dried mango dazzle inside (aka dried mango bits?) This was definitely a unique mooncake. It was very big and dense, and of course, I did not finish it. Out of the four tea-infused mooncakes The Urban Tea Merchant has to offer, only one has the one with a salted egg yolk in the centre. Wish I got to try that one…I love salted egg yolk- screw calories! Nevertheless, this was delicious! I brought it home….and ate it as a snack before dinner..then my brother and I shared the remaining bits as a midnight snack.

Did I mention- those flowers in the picture, they are edible too!

This was a scrumptious meal, and the presentation of this was absolutely beautiful. I thank The Urban Tea Merchant continuously for sharing this with me, and VancityBuzz for giving me the opportunity! If you’re in Vancouver, try the Moon Festival Tea Service to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival in a different way! It is a bit costly- $38 per person, minimum two people. But, this is a limited edition service, and The Urban Tea Merchant only started to offer it this year.

Also- I had previously visited The Urban Tea Merchant to try their macarons. My friend and I were macaron hunting around Vancouver and she said we have to try this place. They had eight different flavours of tea-infused macarons that are flow in from Singapore. These macarons are infused with the luxurious TWG tea. I guess that is why these macarons were at a whopping $4 each. Four dollars. Probably one of the most expensive in Vancouver so far. To prevent my wallet from being too light, I bought one macaron, and my friend bought another one, and we shared them with each other.

My friend bought the purple macaron on the left: The Grand Wedding Tea macaron. It is a black tea with notes of passionfruit. There were also coconut shreds within the filling. I had the Bainds de Roses Tea macaron, which is the pink macaron on the left.

These macarons were very, very, very soft, delicate, and fragile. Hold them too hard, and they start to become a pile of mush. These were yummy, and I love the rose aroma of the Bains de Roses Tea macaron. I would’ve bought more if they weren’t $4. Apparently, the chef used to train with Laudree, which is where the original macaron came from. I never had a Laudree macaron though, hopefully one day I can try one!

Thanks for reading about my long post on this food adventure!