Come explore the world with me. Travel articles and musings from my backyard to exotic foreign trips. They’re in no particular order—just written and posted as the Muse visits.
A Spectacular Iris Garden in the Missouri Botanical Garden, St Louis, called the Alice Hahn Goodman Iris Garden.
If you are in St Louis late April-early May next year, please put this on your calendar. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the shut-downs, we were not able to visit for a couple of years, but luckily we went again this year. What a glorious sight.
The garden showcases over 1,500 irises. An information board tells us that several hundred species of Iris are known. Over 35 species are native to North America and 5 are native to Missouri. The garden tries to display every horticultural division of iris, such as bearded, beardless, dwarf, tall, intermediate.
We wandered around, with some other people, marveling at the colors, diversity and beauty of the irises, which prompted me to find out more about these stunning blooms. It also prompted us to take many photographs, so scroll through and enjoy a sample of this splendid visual display. It was a little early in the season, so not all the blooms were open, but it was still gorgeous. Most of the different irises have a board with the name, for those keen gardeners. One had the intriguing name of “Are You Crazy?”
The name is “Are you crazy?”
Many buds were unopened so the peak display was probably a week or so off
It was no surprise to me that this gorgeous, uniquely beautiful flower is beloved around the world, has a very long history, and has been used in art and symbolism many times through the course of history. For example, Vincent Van Gogh painted irises, as did Joseph Mason, a great friend of John James Audubon.
part of the garden
Modern irises take their name from Iris, Greek Goddess of the Rainbow, and are well named as they come in every nuance of color except true red, which hybridists so far have been unable to capture.
Looks almost red to me!
A delicate pale color
We look forward to irises flowering late every spring, and always marvel at how striking the blooms are. Multi-colored, velvety, flag-like, face-like, bearded, with full frilly petals, with stripes, there are infinite possibilities. There are so many colors and it’s difficult to decide on the exact name of each color. There are over 200 varieties that grow around the world, both wild and in parks and gardens. The irises that are cut are mostly blue (the most popular), white and yellow.
The Missouri Botanical Garden in St Louis is lovely at any time of the year, and every month they will showcase something special. But, spring and early summer are probably the most spectacular, as the garden planners have grouped masses of blooms in one place, creating a vibrant show. Earlier there were daffodils and tulips, and after irises there were lovely peonies and then the Day Lily Garden bursts with color.
A little of the flower’s rich history:
Among the oldest cultivated plants, the genus Iris dates back in gardens to the ancient Egyptians, when Pharaoh Thutmosis III used irises to decorate statues of the Sphinx around 1500 BC. Other ancient Egyptian kings marveled at the iris’s exotic nature, and drawings have been found of irises in a number of Egyptian palaces. The flowers get their name from Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow in Greek mythology and messenger of the gods, acting as the link between heaven and earth. Purple irises were planted over the graves of women to summon the Goddess to guide the dead in their journey.
The Frankish king Clovis I adopted the iris as his emblem in the early 500s, following his conversion to Christianity. An information board in the garden explains that a legend says the iris saved a French army in the 6th century from a hostile force, which had cornered the army in a river bend. The French king spotted a ford near the yellow iris in the water, and led his army to safety.
The tradition of the fleur-de-lis (a stylized iris) in France continued through the centuries. In 1147, King Louis VII had a dream that prompted him to adopt the purple iris as his emblem. Then, in 1376, King Charles V applied three fleur-de-listo his coat-of-arms. From then, irises became linked to the French monarchy, and the Fleur-de-lis eventually became the recognized national symbol of France. The Fleur-de-lis is also the emblem of the city of New Orleans, is on the flag of Quebec and the coat-of-arms of Florence, and the iris is the state flower of Tennessee.
From their earliest years, irises were used to make perfume (at first as offerings to the gods) and as a medicinal remedy, and their roots (rhizomes) were used as a way of keeping casks of beer or wine fresh. Yellow irises are often used to help with water purification and you will frequently see clusters of them growing on water edges.
Today, irises are primarily seen in gardens, and they are a great choice in bouquets for many gift-giving occasions as the flowers have multiple meanings; these include faith, hope, courage, admiration, and wisdom. In some parts of the world, the dark blue or purple iris can denote royalty, whereas the yellow iris can be a symbol of passion.
Irises are cultivated all over the world, and they can be found naturally in Europe, the Middle East, northern Africa, Asia, and North America.
People on the streets in St Louis, hoping for Mardi Gras beads
Laissez les bons temps rouler! Let the Good times Roll!
For many people, Mardi Gras makes them think of New Orleans, and Carnival of Rio De Janeiro, Nice (France) or Venice, as the celebrations there have grown and developed over the years. But, there are, or course, many other great celebrations for these festivals.
A balcony for rent in New Orleans to watch the Mardi Gras parade
A float in the parade in St Louis one year—full of beads to throw
This year, the actual day of Mardi Gras falls on Tuesday March 1, 2022, but celebrations take place for weeks before that. For example, St Louis will have its renowned parade the Saturday before (February 26, 2022), and New Orleans has been celebrating since January 6, 2022 (https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/parades/ ), the period that corresponds to Carnival. In New Orleans all parades and floats were cancelled in 2021, so people are really happy to have them back this year, but with some changes. The routes are shorter, mainly due to staffing shortages, and various COVID precautions are in place.
Carnival in Nice started on February 11 and will end Sunday February 27 this year, and in Venice it started on February 12 and will end on March 1.
In Mardi Gras World, New Orleans
Happiness in St Louis. “Beads for me, please”
I’ve not been in New Orleans for actual Mardi Gras, but one time when we were in the city we visited Mardi Gras World. Mardi Gras World is a famous attraction in New Orleans. It’s a huge warehouse of around 300,000 square feet where the floats for Mardi Gras parades are made. It is next to the Mississippi River by the Morial Convention Center. It has a huge number of floats, costumes, and various Mardi Gras memorabilia—a lot of fun. https://www.mardigrasworld.com . It is advised to make reservations in advance. A lot of my photos are from Mardi Gras World.
Mardi Gras World
Mardi Gras World
The most famous carnival celebration in the States is in New Orleans and it lasts for weeks. The first street parade was in 1838, and it’s been getting bigger and better ever since. Special societies, called krewes, organize elaborate costume balls, build magnificent floats with an elected King (the most famous to date probably being Louis Armstrong) and Queen, have marching bands and parade in innovative costumes. There are more than 100 krewes today, with names like Comus, Twelfth Night Revelers, Rex, Momus, Proteus, and Zulu, the oldest African-American krewe. There are around 70 fantastic parades on different days in and around the city, some with as many as 5,000 participants. Everyone can participate, and school children as well as adults build floats. Anyone can dress up as dragons, fairies or monsters, and not stand out in the crowd. Each year the parade chooses a different theme, such as “fairy tales,” to unify the design of the floats. In New Orleans, all inhibitions are thrown aside as costumed celebrants parade, drink and party late into the night.
Mardi Gras World
Mardi Gras World
My daughter and some friends went once many years ago, and these are her comments: “It’s totally wild. People who go there then have one idea in their minds, and that’s to have a good time, to go overboard with the partying. People do stuff they wouldn’t normally think of. Somehow the attitude is different and ‘anything goes.'” She remembers all kinds of weird costumes, drunken people stumbling around, a crush of bodies and having to be very careful not to fall, otherwise you’re likely to get stomped on. But, she also says that the atmosphere was electrifying and invigorating, and going to Mardi Gras should be something all young people do at least once.
In Mardi Gras World you can have a photo op with some huge masks
Walking in the parade in St Louis
On the other hand, our family friend Gary from Hammond—near New Orleans—has young kids and comments, “We love Mardi Gras. It’s such a part of our tradition. We go every year, but not into New Orleans, because all the other places around the city also have parades. I’d rather take the kids to those ones, where we feel much safer, and they can collect all the cups and beads they want.” Gary and his family have so many now that a couple of rooms in their house are decorated almost entirely with festoons of these brightly colored, sparkly green, gold and purple beads of all shapes and sizes.
One year I walked with Planned Parenthood in the parade in St Louis
The walkers have beads to throw
One year, when my daughter was working for Planned Parenthood, I joined her and walked in the parade for that organization in St Louis and got to experience the excitement from the other side. The Butterfly House in St Louis gets in on the act too and has Morpho Mardi Gras. We went in 2021 and it was really fun to see how the various insect exhibits and many of the information boards were decorated in the Typical Mardi Gras colors. The Butterfly House has Morpho Mardi Gras again this year until March 1.
Morpho Mardi Gras at the Butterfly House in St Louis
At the Butterfly House the Hermit Crab gets some colorful beads
Mardi Gras Traditions
Part of the tradition is that the costumed people on the floats throw out thousands of beads, most in the Mardi Gras colors of gold, green and purple, and an amazing assortment of trinkets, ranging from toothbrushes and collectors’ cards to doubloons and stuffed animals. Perhaps the most prized is a decorated coconut from the Zulu krewe. All the trinkets are paid for by the krewe members, which they willingly do “just because it’s Mardi Gras.”
Traditional foods include the King Cake, in which a charm, often a small plastic baby doll, is hidden. The person who gets the piece of cake with the charm is named the “king” of the carnival and is responsible for making or buying the King Cake the following year. Our friend Gary also loves this tradition and sends us an elaborate King Cake every year—very sugary and covered in green, purple and gold sprinkles.
Costumed walkers in the St Louis parade
Music plays a prominent role in Carnival. Jazz sounds. Rhythm and blues favorites such as “Go to the Mardi Gras.” But the most famous carnival song is the Mardi Gras anthem, which has been the sound of the festival since 1872. It goes like this: “If ever I cease to love/ If ever I cease to love/May the fish get legs and the cows lay eggs/If ever I cease to love!”
What is the meaning of Mardi Gras, Carnival, Shrove Tuesday and Pancake Day and why do we celebrate them?
We need to take a look at the history behind them. In New Orleans and France Shrove Tuesday is called Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday”), because all fats and butters had to be used up by the end of that day; in Germany it is Karneval, Fasching or Fastnacht; and in Brazil, Carnaval.
One float in the St Louis parade even had a live llama
Carnival time includes the period between Epiphany (January 6) and Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, which begins the 40-day period of Lent before Easter in the Christian calendar. This means that Mardi Gras is a moveable holiday that can take place in either February or March. These weeks before Lent are a last chance for feasting and fun, as Lent is a time of self-denial and fasting for Christians. The Carnival season is famous throughout the Christian world for processions, feasting and masquerades, with costumes and masks, a time of merrymaking and fun—activities the early Pagans also indulged in as part of their spring festivities. Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day. It started when, around 600 AD, Pope St. Gregory prohibited Christians from eating all forms of meat and animal products during Lent. So Christians made pancakes to use up their supply of eggs, milk and butter in preparation for Lent.
Photo op at the Butterfly House, St Louis
An information board in Mardi Gras World
Both carnival and Mardi Gras come from the Christian meaning of the holiday. Carnival is derived from carnelevarium, a Latin word meaning “taking away of the meat, ” which is what happens when Lent is obeyed with strict fasts. Gradually it came to mean the days before Lent.
Mardi Gras is celebrated in France and other places in the world with French influence. It came to America when French explorers landed near the mouth of the Mississippi River on March 3, 1699, which happened to also be French Mardi Gras that calendar year. Although not generally a legal holiday, it is widely celebrated as a day of drinking, feasting and partying, for it marks the last time for six weeks that Catholics can enjoy alcohol and feasting. Cities in Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana also celebrate Mardi Gras with an abundance of revelry.
In France, it is traditional to eat a large meal, which might include crepes or waffles. There are parades of flower-covered floats and giant cardboard figures. At the end of the day, a grotesque effigy representing evil is burned. The Carnival in Nice ends with a fireworks display and the burning of “King Carnival” on his pyre.
At the Butterfly House in St Louis. Laissez…
In Spain and Italy, flowers are also used to decorate floats and costumes, and “wars” of flower-throwing are held.
Fasching in Germany and Austria will have processions of masked figures, both beautiful and grotesque. In some Austrian villages, costumed children parade on skis, and in some German towns costumed “witches” parade, carrying brooms which they use to sweep the streets, symbolizing the ancient tradition of chasing away evil spirits by spring cleaning. Basle has a famous carnival in Switzerland. A costumed parade has some very unusual masquerades, such as a double mask, which is a facemask with a second masked head mounted on top. The upper masks often satirize local politicians or events.
..Les Bons Temps..
..Rouler
What About Pancakes?
In other European countries, celebrations are varied and intriguing. One of the more unusual is the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Race in Olney, Buckinghamshire, England. Pancake-making became a Shrove Tuesday tradition to use up the dairy products forbidden in Lent. Legend tells that this race began in 1445, when a local woman was so late for church that she forgot to put down her frying pan and ran all the way to church carrying her pancake.
Today, races are run in other English towns, and in the USA the women of Liberal, Kansas, run in competition with the women of Olney. The costumed Ringer of the Pancake Bell starts the race, in which the women runners wear traditional apron and kerchief. They must toss their pancake three times while running the S-shaped 415-yard course, and the winner gets a kiss from the Bell Ringer. In Liberal, the holiday is known as International Pancake Day, and there are other events besides the race.
International House of Pancakes (IHOP) started the tradition of National Pancake Day, which this year will be on March 1st. On that day, people can go to IHOP between 7am-4pm and get one free short stack of buttermilk pancakes per guest. They are free, but donations are welcome—they go to Children’s Miracle Network, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and Shriners Children’s.
A magnificent African elephant about to start a sand bath int he river bed
Collection of pretty gourds in Missouri Botanical Garden, St Louis
So many people are shocked, angry, stunned, grieving at the outcome of the November USA election. “Whatever will be, will be” after this and events will run their course. But, living with anger and grief is not a good thing for anyone, so I thought this might help for a while.
Mother Nature is a wonderful thing, and usually getting out into Nature (in any form) can be very soothing. (Let’s just hope the new administration doesn’t reverse some/any of the good that’s been done to help our environment—might be a rather forlorn hope, I’m afraid).
I found this poem by Wendell Berry, and it does offer some solace.
A misty fall day in a park in northern Hokkaido, Japan
I’m also going to try and find a photo of ours of something beautiful and wonderful in Nature for the next few days, to try and help soothe some souls.
Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry, a farmer, poet, essayist from Kentucky
“When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
Many cities have, over the years, put up an outdoor exhibition of “Animals on Parade”. The city chooses a special animal—horse, cow, pig, buffalo—and many of these animals are made in fiber glass. Different companies, businesses, shops, institutions adopt an animal and paint it any way they want—usually somehow reflecting their business—and it is placed outside. Some are bright and cheerful, some very whimsical, some symbolic, some rather strange. After some months, there is usually an auction and the animals are sold to benefit a charity. Sometimes the business will keep its own animal, but sometimes it goes to a new home.
We have also seen city benches in Chicago as a theme, and St Louis recently has its 250
Cows on Parade, Chicago 1999
years celebration with 250 fiber-glass cakes dotted around the city. Same great concept.
We’ve seen a number of these collections on our travels and it’s a lot of fun, especially if there’s a list and you can try to track down all of them. Visitors and locals all love these, and it obviously benefits the city to have this extra interest in a temporary exhibition of wonderful outdoor sculptures.
In summer of 2002 we saw the “Buffaloes on Parade” in Salt Lake City and nearby Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake.
Buffaloes on Parade, Salt Lake City 2002
Buffalo parading on Antelope Island, 2002
And the following year we found many of the “Lipizzaners on Parade” in Vienna, Austria. All gorgeous.
Lipizzaners on Parade, Vienna 2003
Lipizzaner parading in Vienna, 2003
In 2014 we went on a serious “Cake Hunt” for the St Louis birthday “Cakes” (which I documented in a special blog: https://mackie250stl.wordpress.com ). And in Chicago we had fun finding some different horses. These were for the Police Memorial Foundation and were called “Horses of Honor.”
Vera M with Horse of Honor, Chicago 2014
Horse of honor, Chicago 2014
A gorgeous Horse of Honor, Chicago 2014
A lovely horse in an Urbana garden
So….walking around my own neighborhood in Urbanathe other day I was intrigued to find a painted fiber-glass horse in someone’s garden. It’s very pretty with a black and white pattern, but its stance didn’t match any of the “parades” that I’ve seen.
I’m very curious—-where did they get it, what does it represent? I don’t know these people at all, so I may never know.
A great shot taken by Rod Mackie through the window to us inside
A Lovely Wine Bar
4069 Shaw Boulevard, St Louis (corner of Thurman)
Not far from the entrance to the Missouri Botanical Gardens.
Open Mon-Sat 11am-1am, Sunday 10am-12am
Our daughter lives in St Louis and we have visited Sasha’s many times, at different times of the year—in the warmer weather we sat outside on the patio but in the cooler weather people can still sit outside, as two outdoor fireplaces have lovely fires. Inside, in winter, there’s also a cozy fire with big stuffed chairs and couches around it. We sat there December 2013, to celebrate our daughter’s graduation from nursing school.
It’s a lovely place to go for a small celebration, or just to hang out with family or friends. Buy a bottle of wine—or two—and a cheese or meat platter for a relaxed couple of hours.
The last time we were there in October we were happy to use their new menu on individual tablets (some iPads), which was easy to navigate. The wine selection is pretty extensive (whites, roses and reds), plus there are a number of local beers too.
Sonya D and Nathalie M. Happy graduation
We’ve always been happy with the service there and love the ambience—informal, but bustling. The wine racks stacked at odd angles up to the ceiling are different to most others we’ve seen and the toilet doors are covered in wine corks—very innovative, as all wine lovers realize that corks collect up very quickly and then…what to do with them?
The side of Rise’s building sports a colorful mural
Rise Coffee, 4180 Manchester Ave, The Grove (the street with a lot of fun murals).
This is a relative newcomer to the coffee scene in St Louis and has become a new favorite for many, including our St Louis family.
It opened in October 2013 in the re-emerging Grove neighborhood. Rise is locally owned by Jessie Mueller and her husband Ron Mueller, and they want to focus on creating a local community in the area. The great coffees and baked items from nearby bakeries (donuts, pastries, vegan cookies, quiche, for example) certainly help with this aim. Their coffee speciality is hand-brewed “pour over” style, which we found very good. They also offer many other kinds of coffees and teas.
At the entrance
Another notable feature is that Rise encourages “pay it forward” as part of a Coffee For The People program and there’s a corkboard with coffee sleeves noting various cups of coffee or other items that have been bought and paid for by a patron, to be used by another patron. This way, folks who cannot usually afford to hang out in coffee shops will be able to join in this community.
The smallish two-story building has a lounge and kids area on the second floor, as they want to encourage people to linger. The Muellers have used handmade lighting and a mishmash of reclaimed, upcycled furniture. There are many other small interesting touches in the décor, which was Bohemian-inspired, and locally crafted.
Different reviewers have used words like quaint, hipster, a gem, cool, with an eclectic chill vibe, neighborly, and we’d have to agree with them all! The servers are all really friendly and the atmosphere is great.
Rise now also has a mobile Coffee Truck (probably the first in St Louis), which started in October 2014. It’s co-owned by Jessie Muelller and Nick and Sara Endejan, both of whom have been very involved in the Rise coffee shop—he as the manager and she as a barista.
Nathalie M and Rod M at a table below the rooster mural
Rooster, at 1104 Locust, on corner of N. 11th Street, St Louis
Rooster is a European-style café in downtown St Louis specializing in crepes, pancakes, special sandwiches and other breakfast and brunch items. They also have a good selection of coffees, beers, and wines, and some say they have the best Bloody Marys and Mimosas in town. However, a Korean friend who went there for the first time told me they disliked the Bloody Mary as too spicy (my guess is that it was just a very different taste for them).
It was busy the day we were there, even though it was the Christmas holiday weekend, and friends tell me that it’s always busy, so it seems to be a popular place. We obviously sat inside, but in the warmer weather they also have outside tables, so you can eat and watch the world go by.
Nathalie M and Viv M
It’s a large place, with a couple of interconnected rooms and a more formal dining area to one side. The interior is tastefully decorated with the rooster theme, all very bright and cheerful; rooster paintings are grouped on walls, a huge rooster mural dominates one side room, metal roosters perch in front of windows and on shelves.
But, besides the warm atmosphere and the friendly and helpful servers, the best thing is the crepes—a great menu with some unusual combinations, both sweet and savory. We went for the savory and had a goat cheese crepe with mushrooms, basil and oven-dried tomatoes; a three-cheese crepe with emmentaler, fontina, asiago, basil and oven-dried tomatoes; and a brie crepe with roasted spiced apple. They all come with some spicy creme fraiche on the side. You can also choose crepes with chicken, bacon, ham, sirloin or sausage, or vegetables, like creamed spinach. All rather inventive!
One of our yummy crepes
Placemat/menu for drinks
The sweet crepes sounded interesting but we didn’t sample any. For example, Nutella with bananas or strawberries; oranges and cream with crème fraiche and honey.
We found the prices reasonable: most crepes in the $8-10 range, coffees about $2.50.
Open 7 days a week. Mon-Fri 7am-3pm; Sat-Sun 8am-3pm.
Even a frosty rooster on one of the doors!
BTW: We were here on one of the days that we were going Cake Hunting for the STL250 celebration. The food fortified us
for a whole afternoon of finding about another 8 cakes!
This unusual seated rabbit sculpture is in Strauss Park, a small park on Grand, almost opposite the Fox Theater, St Louis.
First Night-Saint Louis commissioned this lovely piece of public art.
Artist Catherine Magel directed its creation in 2009 in a partnership between Craft Alliance and Grand Center, Inc., a local organization that promotes public art. Students from three different schools helped to create this 14-foot mosaic sculpture; Clyde C. Miller Career Academy, Metro High School, and Cardinal Ritter College Prep School. They each took part in a one-week intensive studio session, where they helped design the sculpture using ceramic objects, mirror, tile and glass.
Magel chose the rabbit because of its universal appeal and cultural significance, such as luck for the New Year, and fertility for creative ideas. The rabbit is seated in a type of yoga pose, it seems, with its hands/paws in a praying position. There are colored decorations dotted all over its body, some of known objects, some patterns, and some probably symbolic. It’s very thought-provoking, when one takes a closer look. If we think about world mythology and folklore involving rabbits and hares, there are many universal stories that can relate to our lives today.
Facing the Fabulous Fox Theater, Strauss Park also has a bronze portrait bust of Leon R. Strauss (1928-1999), an urban pioneer and preservationist. It was created by Jesse Vonk in 1999.
As the plaque below the bust reads, “ His vision changed the face of St Louis. Strauss’ accomplishments included the restoration of the Fox Theater with his wife Mary and Fox associates, the development of Debaliviere Place and Kinsbury Square and a deep commitment to the Saint Louis Symphony.
This monument stands in Grand Center as a tribute by a grateful city to keep Leon Strauss forever close to its heart”.
We’ve been very busy recently with an exciting new project: Trying to track down and write up as many of the “Birthday Cakes” in St Louis, Missouri, as possible. The city is celebrating 250 years this year and part of the celebrations are fiber-glass birthday cakes with candles, dotted around the city, county and outlying areas. The cakes are at places/buildings/parks/museums/shops/institutions that have have an impact on the history of St Louis and its surrounds and helped to make it what it is.
Cake at Cahokia Mounds
It’s a fun project, part scavenger hunt, part history lesson, part photographic expedition. Each cake has been specially painted by a local artist, usually with images that fit the cake’s location.
The London Tea Room: An Anglophile’s dream in St Louis
The thought of real hot tea sounded very welcoming, so last weekend after ambling around the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market we were happy to try a new place (for us) in St Louis—the London Tea Room in the Tower Grove South neighborhood, just a block off the south side of the Tower Grove Park.
This location of the London Tea Room has been open for 5 months, in a re-habbed historic building (it was Hyde Park Beer) but the British owners have another location 4 miles away, open since 2007. I spoke briefly to owner Jackie James and she said they are very happy with this new location.
The tea room was certainly doing well the Saturday morning we were there. The warm and cozy main dining area seats about 25 people and there is limited seating outside too. Down a few steps beyond the counter is the Hyde Park Room, bright and elegant, which is for special Afternoon Teas (reservation required) or special events, like birthdays, baby showers, or anniversaries (reservation required).
The staff, all wearing matching “Tea Shirts”, take your order at the counter and bring it to your table. There are about 80 varieties of loose-leaf tea available, plus all kinds of delectable goodies, from pastries, to English shortbread, to scones, to quiche, all in glass display cases. It’s mostly tea-time goodies, but some light lunch items are also available.
Deciding what to order
It’s a bit of a dilemma as to which tea to choose. The cafe’s tea options take up four pages of a laminated menu in these categories: breakfast teas, smokey teas, flavored black teas, single estate black tea, oolong tea, green tea, white tea, red tea, and herbal tea. They start at $4 per individual pot, which gives about two and a half cups—more than enough for a relaxing tea and chat session with friends or family.
We opted for a pot each of jasmine green tea, regular Earl grey, Earl Grey with lavender, and the Naughty Vicar (black with a hint of vanilla), plus a shortbread and a spinach and cheese croissant. The staff steeps your tea order behind the counter and carries out the pots of these fragrant teas, in real china pots and we drink from real pottery cups. What a treat.
Nath and Sonya at our Paddington Station table
Brunch/lunch options
We (as ex-British colonials) felt right at home with the decorations, which are British/London themed, such as table order numbers with mini London Underground station names, biscuit tins with English themes, miniature Union Jack flags on top of shelves etc. Loose-leaf tea is for sale, plus tea pots and cups, tea cozies (we loved the one shaped like a Scottie dog!) and other fun things linked to tea. We bought a tea cloth (kitchen drying cloth) with a “letter to my son” (see pic), which is hilarious with its typical dry British humor.
Hours: Monday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Address: 3128 Morganford Road.
It now offers tea education classes twice a month (starting again in September).
PS. Take the time to read the words of this the cloth—most visitors to the tea room laugh out loud when they do! (Click on the picture to see it bigger)
Around and About with Viv 