Vintage Tea Room Fun

Remember When Tea Room

     You may be thinking, a tea room?  Not for me, too old school.  But any of you lovers of Downton Abbey will have to agree that it's exactly this kind of place, or the pure opulence and "fruffery" of the scenery that drew you back to the tv set week after week.  
     This was my second visit to this place, "Remember When Tea Room" and I came back because I remembered how unique, fun and inspiring it was here.  Not to mention the tea selection with over 60 different varieties and great food to boot.  It's not just the food and tea I was after, but a great experience as well...          

      So, fix yourself a cup of tea and sit back to enjoy a visual feast of colors, food, nics-nacs of every kind imaginable. You'll see these and anything else you can imagine in this one-of-a-kind tea room with its painted floors, ceilings and vintage retro item-filled rooms.  
     There are way too many pics here, but I had a difficult time whittling them down; the memories of the experience fueling my photo enthusiasm. I think you'll enjoy this visit as much as I and my lovely companions, mom, sister and mom-in-law!  Enjoy...
     

Happy faces to greet ya...

Love the colors in this trinket...

Lots of great tea items to stir up your appetite

Heads up!  The hallway ceiling covered in dried celosia flowers...

You walk through a maze of gift shop rooms before arriving at your destination

Lovely Sista

French Vanilla Tea, thank you

Lots of love here...

Saffron-Chicken and Mushroom Crepes - they were...wow!!

Not into crepes? Try their Asparagus Asiago Cheese Quiche.

Belgian Chocolate Rooibos...one small pot of tea

Lemon Curd and Devonshire Cream

A great lunch and tea is over, time to explore...

I believe this was a kid's item room, painted floor too.

Bath item treasures

Lots of opulent items for sale

Remembering...?

There's your favorite tea to purchase on your way out...

A great little vignette to draw contemplation from...

More sparkly trinkets

Their Christmas ornament room and the end of our trip...

Want to check it out?  Visit their webpage at http://rememberwhentearoom.com for more information.  It's a fun place, and the whole area in Kirtland, Ohio has quite a few treasures to visit.  Blessings!!

Tea Chat at the Open Door Coffee House

 Tea happens to be something I REALLY like to talk about and drink.  So, I was invited by our local coffee house where I used to work, to give a 10-15 minute talk about the quick history of tea and about some of the teas that the coffee house was selling. Awesome!  So I  worked on condensing the immense info there is out there on tea (ahhhhh!) into ten minutes and still managed to produce three handouts which included a "fill-in the blanks" sheet.  Thankfully, no one looked too disturbed at all the papers being passed around.

Open Door Coffee House

So, on with the teaching!  After giving some quick history of how the Chinese were the first to discover tea, the differences between black, oolong, green and white teas, what herbals are, how much caffeine is in tea, where tea is grown, what tea varieties do they sell here, it was time for samples.  (Sorry, that was a major run-on sentence.)

Heidi, the assistant manager, made tea for everyone and the samples went all around.  This helped so much when explaining the different flavors associated with the different teas.   

We started out with our Indian black tea, Ceylon and India.  Indian teas are primarily British Legacy Teas and are strong and assertive because they usually are processed and fermented quickly.  Think, espresso as compared to a regular cup of coffee.  These are the ones we mostly drink as Westerners and many Europeans.  I like them, but really love some of the Chinese black teas as they are smooth, with cocoa tones and don't need the addition of milk and sugar.  

The Japanese Green Sencha tea is very grassy and vegetal.  Brewing up to a bright green, it's definitely not your average bag of tea!  Very refreshing, slightly astringent and great hot or iced, a new favorite for me!

Finally, we got to our Rooibos tea.  The "tea" (it's actually an herbal), from South Africa is one of my big time favorites.  I drink it by the pound as it has superb health benefits, including its vitamin and mineral content.  It also contains some alpha hydroxy which is good for the skin.  I usually drink it flavored with natural vanilla and it's great iced or hot.  

Ceylon and India, Rooibos and Japanese Green Sencha teas

All in all, it was a fun time, and we all learned a little bit more about tea. It's a great drink, good for you and good tasting.  Life always seems to be a bit better with a cup of tea...