A soothing cup of tea

A pair of local tearooms offer patrons a relaxing alternative to fast-paced coffee shops.

Written by Annie Johnson for roanoke.com)

The White Oak Tea Tavern near Fincastle isn’t exactly your grandma’s cup of tea.

There’s an elevated flat-screen plasma television tuned in to a cable channel with breaking news scrolling across the bottom. Yet any sense of urgency is reduced by the recorded strains of Nat “King” Cole and other crooners from a half-century ago.

Robin Samuels, 38, and her mother, Kathryn Perry, 78, sit nearby and drink — not tea, but hot chocolate. Ambience is the point in this place, not precisely what you’re drinking.

“This is so relaxing,” said Perry. The dark tables in the log cabin are freshly wiped after a morning rush, while leather couches puff back into form. The brick fireplace is off, but that can be changed, according to owner Jennifer Aylor, who occasionally turns down the thermostat for customers who want the fireplace lit in the summer months.

“I have, literally, truck drivers who stop in; my Fed Ex guy, he looks like a Pittsburgh Steeler,” Aylor said. “I didn’t want people to feel like they had to dress to come here.”

And the whole idea of a tearoom could intimidate some. After all, teatime has a certain pedigree, made popular centuries ago by no less than the Duchess of Bedford.

But history can be liberally interpreted, and Aylor chooses to recall and refresh it thusly: Pastel-colored teapots and cups sit below shelves holding containers of loose tea leaves, along with imported and organic bags of the soaking sort — calming lavender, ginger root, Irish breakfast.

“A cup of tea shared is happiness tasted and time well spent,” reads a sign just above the entrance to the seating area.

Aylor offers customers a chance to take home the mood, with a small gift shop in the front of the cabin, replete with teapots, candy and children’s gifts.

A decade ago there were roughly 200 tearooms across the nation; now there are nearly 2,000, according to Jim Simrany, president of the Tea Association of the USA in New York. The wholesale value of tea sold in this nation has more than tripled to roughly $6 billion since 1990.

OK, so those aren’t Starbucks numbers. The Seattle-based coffee shop chain now totals almost 8,000, including one that opened in Roanoke last year. But they are relatively sterile environments, compared with White Oak, where customers are served on wooden plates, adorned with blueberries and grapes to garnish scones — and a glass pot of tea.

Yes, it’s caffeine, but not at the go-go pace of coffee shops. The differences in atmosphere aren’t subtle. Tall coffee mugs give way to dainty teacups, napkins to saucers, half-and-half to honey, and bulky sugar dispensers to petite cubes.

“Coffee people are more on the go. The concept of a traditional ’sit down and take your time sipping a cup of coffee’ is pretty incongruous with the beverage itself. With tea it’s an intricate part of it,” Simrany said.

A Salem tearoom, Petticoats and Petit Fours, gives customers the experience of a more proper setting, a house with large white columns and lace curtains. It’s the vision of Leslie Long, who opened the Victorian-style tearoom in February. “We serve little ladies and little gents starting at age 5,” a sign reads next to the entrance.

Customers sit at cloth-covered tables, napkins draped across their laps, traditional teacups resting on white doilies in front of them. Pink flowers decorate the ceramic china pieces that carry freshly baked scones, which are accompanied by a small portion of Devonshire whipped cream and strawberry jam.

A light Celtic tune echoes through hidden speakers.

Long wanted something different and she got it. Waitresses dress in period costumes, many of which Long scrounged from estate sales. And the name itself, Petticoats and Petit Fours, was taken from a chapter of the historically based American Girls book series.

“We’d like to create a place where people can come and just have intimate moments,” Long said.