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Tea (rec.drink.tea) Discussion relating to tea, the world's second most consumed beverage (after water), made by infusing or boiling the leaves of the tea plant (C. sinensis or close relatives) in water. |
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I was down in Florida the week before Xmas, avoiding the least
possibility of "white" and driving a rented convertible, so the mrs. and I decided to cruise up the coast a bit and stop by chez Flagler. (Mr. Flagler made his money by helping to found Standard Oil, then invented Florida; among other things, he built a railroad from Jacksonville to Key West, and opened up Miami to human settlement, more or less.) Their house is in Palm Beach, now open as a museum dedicated to the excesses of the Gilded Age, and it's a modest little place where the couple could spend six weeks a year. The entrance hall is barely more than twice the size of my house. Anyway, in the annex, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, there is a little cafe where, if you get there before all the food is gone (they make a limited amount so it's fresh when it gets to you), you can have what they call a Gilded Age Tea. The setting is lovely, although the view (hotels and condos across the water) is not what it was for the Flaglers (wilderness punctuated by the tasteful shacks of their employees), and the china service is quite nice. The food is excellent, an assortment of tea sandwiches, of course, with four tiny desserts (a first-rate scone, a fig bar, a brownie, and a marvelous single-bite cream puff). But you aren't so interested in that. You want to know about the tea. It is the best tea I've ever had in a restaurant. It comes in a nice, large pot, made with properly hot water and refilled as needed. (At one point the manager saw that we were out of tea and scurried over to put more hot water in the pot. The waitress, observing this, came back to our table, retrieved the pot, and added fresh leaves. She wasn't going to let us drink dishwater on her watch. I should add that in both cases they performed the operation not at our table, but over where they had access to boiling water.) The tea itself is a proprietary blend from Harney's, called Whitehall (the name of the mansion). There's no indication of what it contains, but I would guess Keemun and Darjeeling for starters, and I found it a nice enough afternoon tea to take a pound home with me. The meal was a bit steep at $18 per person, plus entrance to the museum, but it was worth it for a vacation experience. dmh |
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