Road-testing Philly’s Tea Around Town, a British afternoon tea on a glass-topped tourist bus

The intersection of Sixth and Market is usually teeming with flocks of tourists, gaggles of students on field trips, and folks on their way to work. But a new group has been congregating there lately, and they’re hard to miss: Clad in floral prints and solids that range in hues from pastel to fluorescent, with lace gloves and pinned-on hats and precisely coiffed hairstyles, they assemble, two by two, on Market Street. Like many milling around the sidewalk, they’re waiting for a bus. Unlike the bedraggled commuters, however, they’re in no particular hurry, because their ultimate destination is afternoon tea.

The twist here is that this crowd will take their tea on the bus — which happens to be two stories tall and topped by a flower-studded glass ceiling — during a tour of downtown Philly. If the premise of enjoying Earl Grey and tea sandwiches while navigating Center City streets strikes you as precarious, we’re on the same page.

Tea Around Town, which combines a bus tour with afternoon tea — the formal British custom of serving tea alongside a selection of dainty sandwiches and sweets sometime between lunch and dinner — launched in Philly in late April. Seats start at $85 per person for its “petit” experience (though you must book at least two), which includes two finger-sized sandwiches per person (the classics: cucumber and egg salad), a small serving of crudités, a smattering of half-dollar-sized sweets and scones, and four teas served in a floral-patterned souvenir tumbler. The “luxe” package, at $125 and up, gets you all of the above plus a nonalcoholic rosé, a mocktail, and an enhanced selection of teeny bites (smoked salmon crostini, a lobster-topped puff pastry, a lemon meringue tartlet).

Tea Around Town comes to Philly by way of TopView Sightseeing, which runs bus tours and cruises in and around Manhattan. TopView expanded to London last year, where the team encountered the tea bus experience, itself a merger of two quintessentially British things: double-decker buses and afternoon tea. The idea to combine the two seems to have originated in London in 2014, when the owners of Brigit’s Bakery purchased a vintage red Routemaster and converted it into a mobile tea room. A decade in, the bakery has added tea boat tours, holiday-themed tea bus tours, gin lovers’ tea bus tours, Peppa Pig tea bus tours, and Paddington Bear tea bus tours. Copycats followed, and there are now numerous services in London offering afternoon tea on a bus.

Charmed, TopView decided to import this experience to the States. Tea Around Town NYC debuted last summer, with a single bus circulating through Midtown; today, TopView operates 10 tea buses total, running 90-minute tours daily from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Senior director of sales Tom Weiner declined to provide any sales figures, but said that the tea bus concept’s success in New York encouraged it to expand, and Philly’s proximity, history, and culture made it the obvious next stop. Currently, TopView sends two tea buses down from New York each day, but the plan is to have buses stationed here in the near-future. (Philly’s prices are just a hair cheaper than New York’s.)

On an 80-degree day in late April, I decide to take Tea Around Town for a spin. There’s no chance of mistaking the bus for any of the other double-deckers driving down Market Street. Besides the cluster of women dressed to impress, the bus’ exterior is wrapped in an advertisement for itself, complete with a QR code and illustrations of a tea party. An attendant in a blush tuxedo vest, matching tie, and khakis draws back a velvet curtain when it’s time to board, directing us upstairs.

Rhinestone fabric and brass accents trim the skylights, and the windows are framed with creeping vines of fake roses in every shade of purple and pink. Instrumental pop music (à la Bridgerton) plays over the air conditioning, which is blasting at full bore. Another pink-garbed attendant shows us to our table, set with pastel pink plates and bubblegum-colored napkins next to a three-tiered stand — the universal symbol of teatime. Don’t look for any porcelain teacups, though: At every pink-and-white leather seat, insulated tumblers sit snug in built-in cupholders.

Peering around the bus, nearly sold out on a Thursday afternoon, most people clearly opt for the luxe experience. The petit setup indeed looks petite in contrast — there’s more plate than there is stuff on the top tier. Still, the half-dollar-sized pairs of berry tarts, chocolate mouse cups, and macarons from Rittenhouse’s Hart of Catering are tasty enough.

While TopView specializes in tourism, Weiner said that the tea bus has resonated among locals, too — which was certainly true of my tour. When our guide, Destiny, polls the audience, all but one guest is local.

It quickly becomes obvious why everyone is there: for the ’gram. People snap selfies start to finish. As the bus rolls through Chinatown, a woman in a hot pink hat struts down the aisle in heels, livestreaming as she narrates her own experience, interviewing other guests, and putting tour guide Destiny slightly on edge. “Just be careful when the bus comes to a stop,” Destiny cautions.

The streets seem unfamiliar from the second-story vantage point as we lurch along our route — Fifth to Race to Second to Arch to 12th to Market to the Parkway. Destiny, also a Philadelphian, gives an impassioned reading of a script that details various landmarks, but nary a conversation quiets to listen to facts about the Betsy Ross House, the Ben Franklin Bridge, the Reading Terminal, and the Wanamaker Building.

Still, I snap to attention when Destiny suddenly breaks into song: “A-tisket, a-tasket, a brown and yellow basket …” As if tea on a moving bus wasn’t stimulating enough, Tea Around Town also folds in live music (that is still playing in my head days later). It arrives just as our “tea specialist,” Tom, delivers the first of four pours of tea. He fills the tumbler about a third full of a raspberry-pomegranate blend that is scalding. (The following teas — cherry blossom, citron green, and peppermint — are more temperate.) I leave the lid off the tumbler to let it cool; thankfully, the early parts of the tour route are mostly pothole-free.

It’s maybe a little strange that Tea Around Town Philly — a British tradition-turned-tourist experience seemingly reverse-engineered to be Instagrammable — is set in the birthplace of the American Revolution. But the dissonance of the whole thing smooths out by the time you hit the Parkway, about 45 minutes into the 75-minute drive.

By this time, Destiny and Tom have switched places, revealing that all Tea Around Town staffers can sing. (Tom also pulls from a jazz-leaning songbook, starting with “L-O-V-E.”) The selfies and streaming taper off and everyone seems to just enjoy having tea on a bus in midafternoon on a sunny day, with Philly’s most picturesque diagonal on full display.

Would I take Tea Around Town over any of Philly’s stationary tea shops or afternoon tea establishments? Not for that price. But it is the only time I’ve ever wished for more traffic on the Parkway.