Temptress With a Teapot

A wall of 36 teacups sets the tone for an adventure of many decisions at Savannah Tea House. First, you’ll need to select a cup and saucer from the dozens of unique styles and designs displayed on the shallow bookcase. Pink cabbage roses? Simple blue flowers? A tall cup covered in purple violets?

Or maybe you’d prefer iced tea, in which case you don’t need to choose a cup, just a flavor, from the matrix of black teas, estate teas, white teas, green teas, oolongs, herbals and rooibos, all of which can be poured over ice.

Next, owner Lisa Jackson will ask, “Sweet or unsweet? Do you need it decaffeinated? Do you want cream in that?”

But don’t panic. There are no rules. Even if the South Africans drink their naturally caffeine-free rooibos—or bush tea—with cream and sugar, you don’t have to. And Jackson won’t say a word if you sip your fruit-flavored blend with milk, or ask her to pre-steep your Earl Grey for 35 seconds to remove the caffeine. This is, after all, Eighth Avenue, not Buckingham Palace.

While English traditionalists would serve tea at 4 p.m., Jackson flicks the pinkie finger to rigid convention. A former forklift driver for the Air Force, she serves full afternoon tea throughout the day, then shuts the doors at 5 and retires to her apartment above the store.
And whether she knows it or not, she has embedded some incongruously scatological humor into her otherwise twee decor. At one table, a yellowed newspaper clipping under glass lists among its nostalgic classifieds a remedy for piles: “Instant relief…no purge, no salve, no suppository.” So if you think a teahouse might be too ladylike for you, consider sitting at the first table on the left. Clearly, no subject is off limits there.

But on the subject of tea, Jackson is well versed. Part of the rising tide of tea in the U.S., Jackson attended tea school at Magnolia & Ivy in Columbus, Ga., in 2001 before opening Miss Annabelle’s Tea & Gift Shoppe in Loveland, Oh. There she became fluent in the minutiae of tea leaves and the history of the trade.

Shortly after opening Miss Annabelle’s in a refurbished 19th century hardware store, Jackson and her husband decided to move to Nashville to be near his family. Coincidentally, at that time, someone approached Jackson about buying Miss Annabelle’s. Jackson sold the store, which is still in business, and briefly operated a tea shop in the Bellevue Mall in 2005. Last June, she opened Savannah Tea House on Eighth Avenue, in a cozy bungalow with a gracious front porch buffering against the hustle of Franklin Road as it courses into downtown.

Lunch at Savannah is a genteel meal of soups, quiches, sandwiches and salads, all of which depend upon Jackson’s mood in the morning. Her spur-of-the-moment menu decisions bode well for the freshness of Savannah’s offerings. On one visit, we enjoyed a brothy chicken-and-pasta soup overflowing with freshly sliced mushrooms. The thin slivers were warmed through by the piping-hot soup but retained their pale color and crisp texture rather than giving way to dark sogginess. On another visit we had a delicate cream of broccoli and chicken sprinkled with chives.

Jackson’s quiche eliminates the standard piecrust. Instead, she bakes a mixture of egg, flour and cream in a muffin tin to create a hybrid of quiche and bread pudding flavored with fillings such as sauteed peppers and onions, bacon or spinach.

Walk-in guests may order soups, salads and sandwiches from the menu, but to enjoy the full anachronistic experience, visitors should call ahead to reserve a full afternoon tea. The equivalent of a light five-course meal, full afternoon tea opens with a tea, hot or cold. Each guest gets her own pot, which arrives at the table already steeped and strained to reveal the full flavor of the tea. We enjoyed an elegant glass pot of tea made from ginseng and whole lily flower, otherwise known as a “flowering tea ball.” We also sampled some of Jackson’s playful recipes blended from various loose leaves. The so-called Creamsicle combined vanilla and mandarin teas for a taste reminiscent of the renowned frozen treat; the Hawaiian colada married raspberry tea with piña colada tea for a warm tropical cocktail.

Then came fresh cinnamon scones and carrot muffins. The menu lists clotted cream, but the fluffy, sweet topping is more like whipped cream than the traditional English version. After the soup and quiche courses (these are omitted from the light afternoon tea) followed the pièce de résistance, a three-tiered tray of gorgeous two-bite snacks: cucumber sandwiches, stuffed tomatoes, hand-dipped chocolate strawberries, cream puffs and cheese cakes, garnished with fresh fruit and cheese. Just as we thought we might float away on tea and sugar, a final scoop of sorbet arrived. Start to finish, the whole affair lasted two hours.

The second most popular drink in the world behind water, tea ranks further down the list of beverages in the U.S. But its popularity is climbing as stores such as Teavana, which recently opened a location in the Mall at Green Hills, attempt to translate the caffeinated—and franchisable—potential of coffee into the language of Darjeeling and Lapsang Souchong.

“A lot of people are drinking tea for the health benefits,” says Jackson. But she is quick to add that no one’s getting thin fast by drinking tea, especially if they add the cream and sugar.

At Savannah, the business of tea is more about gathering and relaxing away from the madding crowd than about the nutritional benefits of the beverage. On one of our visits, the two rooms at Savannah hosted dueling showers, one for a bride and one for a mom-to-be. Savannah is ideal for lingering over conversation, and while we felt like we had overstayed our welcome, we also realized that we arrived after and left before several tables of ladies. Needless to say, there are not a lot of men at Savannah Tea House.

Leaving Savannah, you will inevitably have a heightened sense of the world of teas, so much so that you might just be inclined to purchase loose teas or the various tea-worthy accoutrements, such as cups, saucers, cosies, strainers, spoons and other steeping gadgetry.

If Jackson isn’t busy cooking or serving, ask her for a quick tour of her wares, specifically the tea bricks. Made of compressed leaves and stamped with a decorative pattern, a tea brick doubles as stunning artwork and beverage medium; it can be shaved to produce just as much loose tea as needed for brewing.

Don’t miss the exquisite Chinese Yixing clay pots, the sleek silver Russian tipping pots, the Japanese cast-iron pots, or the Globinhos, which look like something between percolators and bongs. Of course, there are also litters of kitty-cat pots and teacups with bunnies, snails, gorillas and sailboats, not to mention hundreds of loose teas.

So many decisions can be a little overwhelming, but Jackson offers three pieces of advice. First, everyone should have two teapots—a porcelain pot for guests and a ceramic pot for everyday use. Ceramic isn’t as pretty, but it holds the heat better. Second, if you want afternoon tea at Savannah’s, call ahead for reservations. Jackson prepares the food in the morning, so she needs to know ahead of time how many little sandwiches to make. Finally, plan ahead to make the most of your teatime. “When people call, I direct them to the menu on the website,” Jackson says, “so they can ponder their choices.”

Savannah Tea Room is open for lunch Tuesday through Saturday, with seatings for full afternoon tea at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Walk-ins are welcome, but reservations are recommended for full and light afternoon tea. Visit savannahteacompany.com for more information.

This article was taken from: NashvilleScene