kitsch tea rooms
sixteenth in a series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea and milk in the NW USA.
Thursday Tiffin #16 kitsch tea rooms
Promised Ostentatiousness: A local guide lists a number of ‘top spots’ for taking tea in the NW USA. It cites the ‘Queen Mary Tea room’ as a top spot. Evidently it’s the ‘perfect place to hold your next baby or bridal shower’ Because, this being the US, you will need more than one bridal shower in your lifetime and you will be dropping dozens of sproggs, its your US patriotic duty to be a one-woman baby factory. You’ll need plenty of tea to shower the brood with. According to the website your guest of honour gets to be ‘Queen for a day’. I can just feel the Britishness oozing out of their ostentatious advertizing material, can’t you?
Girl zone: On your behalf I ventured into this den of inequiTEA. It was packed with women who looked older than me, past baby-dropping age, probably on their third or forth wedding. Probably ‘regulars’. Their hair neatly bouffed, their earrings matching ironed blouses. Not a nose-stud or jaunty hat in sight (except mine).
Pricey: The decorative style could be called ‘Victorian clutter’, but more accurately described as American kitsch-cute-clutter. The theme of bone china and teapots provided the main concession to a British angle. I swallowed my bile and reached for the menu. An impressive menu in tea selection and prices. There is a minimum charge of $10.00 per person. A single pot of tea cost $4.99. I ordered the standard afternoon tea ($24.99 per person). Silly me, I made the risky assumption that my tea would come with milk. Eventually I caught the busy, polite, server’s (female) eye to request milk.
Cold tea: Another server (female) explained the difference between brewing and stewing to the ladies on the table next to me. I was impressed, she managed the explanation without using any of these words: stew, brew, steep or tannin. No small achievement. When the server (female) bought my pot of Tea she explained that I should wait between 3 and 5 minutes before removing the leaves from the pot. Good advice, difficult to follow because I have no watch and no timer was provided. Luckily I know how to judge a brew based on smell and look. Saved! The filter for the tea-leaves was not designed for the pot shape. The lid was jauntily placed, like my hat, on the filter. I looked around and all the teapots in the place were like this. The filter was packed with tea leaves. I tried to jiggle the filter to facilitate water flowing over the tea. There wasn’t enough room. I tried picking up the pot and creating a circular movement to encourage a flow of tea around the pot. People looked at me, eye’s scorched pathways into my un-matching earrings and jumper. Eventually the colour looked good and I removed the filter containing the leaves. The pot was sufficiently ‘cool’ to hold in my hands. I contemplated asking for a tea cosey. Checking the other tables there were no tea cosey’s in sight. Frankly, call me pathetic, I was too intimidated by the clientelle and overly busy servers (all female) to ask for a tea-cosey. Sigh. I drank my almost cold tea, it tasted excellent, would have tasted better at an appropriate temperature. I don’t think they warmed the pot, and I wasn’t bought, or offered the opportunity to have a pot of hot water to top-up.
Mixed food quality: The food that came with the Tea was a mixed affair. The sorbet’s were excellent. The flatware provided to eat the sorbet was a tea-spoon. Huh? that’s highly inappropriate for a quality tea rooms. It’s an example of the American ‘kitchness’ that oozed throughout this place. Having quarterized crumpet. What the?! Very dry and totally missing the sumptuousness that is the crumpet. I couldn’t even bring myself to eat this. The scone was an American scone. American scones are triangular rather than oval and more akin to British Rock cakes than English scones. The fresh fruit was wonderful and the cake was pretty tasty.
Would I go again? Yes! to try the other teas and remind myself of the unique, strange, US girly, atmosphere. The atmosphere actually grew on me. On return visit I’ll be more assertive and ask for the pot to be warmed, a tea cosey and a supplementary pot of hot water. Wild eh? I’d quite like to take a group of boys in there just for the hell of it what will boy-pheromones do to the atmosphere? I’m that kind of rebel. Hurrah!
Queen Mary Tea house is a good place to occasionally take, or eye-up, elderly US girlies (if that’s what you like)
