April 18, 2010
HOUSE OF CHa: the art of sipping tea
My Oriental Beauty Oolong Tea
April 19, 2010: Hidden behind some trees on on 21 West 9th Street in Lawrence, Kansas, is an Asian style tea room.
HOUSE OF CHa is a fantastic find and one of my favorite tea rooms so far.
On a day trip to Lawrence with my mother, I decided to check out the tea room of the HOUSE OF CHa.
The place is smaller than I expected, but it’s cozy. There are seven tables and the decor is simple and traditional. In the front window of the tea house is a beautiful Asian style display of rocks, teapots, cups, and bamboo.
Here, the atmosphere is calm and relaxed and so are the visitors.
I saw several college students on their laptops, making HOUSE OF CHa their study place for the day. One lively customer brought in his banjo and played a few notes. He quickly quieted down, blending into the tranquil atmosphere.
The clientele is mainly younger adults in their twenties, but I saw older adults come in for tea too.
HOUSE OF CHa is trendy with their teas. I found it tough to select just one tea amidst all their interesting choices.
The bubble teas are their most popular items. They serve bubble iced tea (pearl milk tea) and bubble milk iced tea served hot or cold. The bubble teas are flavored with kiwi, kumquat, strawberry, green apple, and about 10 other choices. I saw a lot of customers order them. They are popular to-go type teas.
I decided to try one of their hot teas. They serve oolong teas, Japanese green teas, flower-infused teas, and blended teas.
Their blended teas are cool. Customers can choose from 3 categories: 1) Cha for Cleansing, 2) Cha for Vitality, and 3) Cha for Spirit.
The Asian Inspired Decor in the Front Window
I like HOUSE OF CHa because they highlight the health benefits of drinking tea. For example, if you have trouble with anxiety, HOUSE OF CHa recommends drinking chamomile tea to help.
The Herbs used in their teas are primarily rose pink, lavender, chamomile, peppermint, chrysanthemum, rosemary, verbena, mallow, and hibiscus.
After much debate, my mom and I finally decided to share a pot of an oolong hot tea called Oriental Beauty. The leaves of this tea are a “popular native of Taiwan with pleasant lemon and spice accents.”
We loved it! It was delicious. The cool thing about the teas here is that all the subtle flavors come from the tea leaves themselves. There is no need to add anything else to flavor the teas.
HOUSE OF CHa also offers tea snacks and desserts. For tea snacks they serve Taiwanese pineapple cakes, roasted watermelon seeds, milk roasted sunflower seeds, and green tea pumpkin seeds.
I didn’t see anybody order and food and I didn’t venture to try a snack, but they look interesting.
Oriental noodle soup and a bruschetta sandwich are offered, but are not popular.
Here I am practicing the art of sipping tea
People mainly come here for a taste of HOUSE OF CHa’s unique herbal teas and stress-free atmosphere.
Afternoon Tea at the Strawberry Hill Museum
Fusion Red & White Tea paired with Povitica
April 18, 2010: Immigrants from Croatia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, and other central European countries came to America, making Kansas City their new home.
When a flood forced many families to move to higher ground, they stumbled upon a hill, in which they called Strawberry Hill, named for its strawberry patches. In1887, a Victorian home was built on Strawberry Hill for a wealthy family.
About 100 years later, this old Victorian home has been transformed into what is now known as the Strawberry Hill Museum & Cultural Center.
In search of another Victorian style tea room, I decided to visit the Strawberry Hill, located on 720 N. 4th Street, Kansas City, Kansas. My mother joined me and we had a wonderful afternoon.
At first our mission was just to visit the tea room, but once we got there, we decided that we better do the tour.
Volunteers from the Strawberry Hill Ethnic Cultural Society took us on a tour through this renovated home, a cultural heritage museum of the central Europeans that settled in Kansas City, and a doll collection.
The coolest thing I saw was a bed that Pope John Paul II slept on three different times when he visited the city. I also caught a glimpse of the Papal menu he was served.
Following the tour, we made our way to the tea room.
This atmosphere was light and welcoming. They played Croatian music on a CD player in the corner of the room. The music featured Croatian folk artists Marijana and Edd Grisnik, who happened to live on Strawberry Hill at one time. I thought that was cool.
The Assortment of Teas at Strawberry Hill
I spoke with the server and found out some neat history of the tea room. When the family lived in the house the tea room was not enclosed and it served as a porch.
When the1919 influenza pandemic hit Kansas City, many children became orphaned. The house was sold and turned into an orphanage. Eventually, the orphanage closed and now, it’s a tea room.
After an hour long tour, we couldn’t wait to relax with our hot teas and Slavic desserts.
They brought us an assortment of tea bags to choose from. Some of the bags were homemade, which added a nice touch. I chose fusion red and white tea and my mom chose Darjeeling. Apparently, Darjeeling is from the foothills of the Himalayas.
I liked the fusion red and white tea. I’d never had it before. I found it to be subtly sweet and delicate.
Other fun teas to choose from were gingerbread decaf, raspberry zinger decaf, sugar cookie decaf, and sugar plum spice.
Along with my tea, I eat povitica, a nutroll of central European descent. It’s traditionally made in Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, and Hungary. It’s popular at weddings, Easter, and Christmas. It tasted like bread, ever so sweet with a hint of nut.
My mother was served Kolache. They brought her three small pastries with different flavored fillings, one apricot, one raspberry and one poppy seed.
My mother ordered Strawberry Hill's spin on the Kolache, a Slavic dessert
Today, the tea room was not very busy. According to our server, the busiest time of year for Strawberry Hill is around Christmas time when people flock to see the Christmas decorations.
The tearoom is regularly open from 1-4 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. I was told that during the holiday season, if you don’t arrive at 1 pm, you may not be seated for tea. It’s that busy!
A quaint tea room, with an interesting theme! If you go here, I highly recommend taking the tour of the museum first.
Madame Hatter’s Tea Room
Hot Tea at Madame Hatter's Tea Room
April 17 2010: Embedded within the restaurant is a small alcove where guests can borrow hats, boas, gloves, and other womanly accessories to where while they enjoy their afternoon tea, giving them that old time Victorian experience.
Continuing my quest of exploring new tearooms around Kansas, today I treated my mother to lunch and afternoon tea at Madame Hatter’s Tea Room located at 228 Oak Street, Bonner Springs, Kansas.
Neither of us had been here before and when we walked through the door, I was taken aback by the décor in dining area. It’s adorable!
The colors are light springtime colors and just about every inch of the room is covered in decorations. Old fashioned dolls, hat boxes, and purses are displayed on the walls, along with flowery wreaths, ribbons, and bows. Frilly Victorian umbrellas hang from the ceiling and most of the tables have white lace tablecloths and artificial flowers.
It’s very girly, so men, be prepared. Madame Hatter’s Tea Room seems like the perfect place for mothers and daughters to bond and a great place for girl talk.
When we arrived at Madame Hatter’s, the staff was setting up for a baby shower. For special events like this, Madame Hatter’s is an ideal venue.
It turned out to be an ideal venue for my mother and I to catch up and enjoying an afternoon together.
The service was great! Everyone was very attentive, pleasant, and friendly. Our server wore a pink flowered apron and immediately offered us our choice of tea, iced tea or hot tea.
House Salad served with Lunch
Today’s iced tea special was white sweet raspberry tea, but my mother, who loves iced teas, chose a regular sweet tea, her first sweet tea to be exact. Let’s just say it lived up to her expectations.
Since I am a more traditional tea drinker, I chose hot tea. The server brought over an old-fashioned purple teapot and set it on the table along with a cup and saucer.
I looked over at the other tables and noticed that each table had their own unique looking teapot. One teapot was white with large colorful polka dots and another was blue with stripes.
Along with the teapot came an assortment of hot tea bags to choose from. Madame Hatter’s carries fun teas like gogiberry green tea, strawberry pomegranate, and chai French vanilla, among other flavors.
First, I chose was black tea & bergamot, followed by blueberry bliss. They were both enjoyable, but blueberry bliss was the w
inner for the day. The taste was smooth, gentle, and slightly sweet. I discovered that I like blueberry tea and since this experience I have brewed my own blueberry tea at home.
After enjoying our tea for a bit, the server came back to take our lunch order.
We decided on the full-service lunch, which includes tea of our choice, a house salad with Italian dressing, an entree, a signature side dish, and a dessert.
I chose their most popular entree called Our Famous Chicken Salad. As their menu reads its “white herbed chicken, grapes, celery, green onion, and pecans on a buttery croissant.” It was delicious.
I especially liked the hint of crunchiness from the celery and I thought that putting grapes in the chicken salad was creative. I’d never seen grapes in a chicken salad before. I loved that! The signature side dish today was a creamy pasta salad with a tiny fruit cup.
My Blueberry Scone with Devon Shire Cream
For dessert, I chose Madame Hatter’s scone of the day. It was blueberry and came with a spread of Devon shire cream. The scone paired nicely with my blueberry bliss tea.
Overall, a cute place!
BRITS
Ashby's of London Tea & Biscottea Honeybrush Tea Shortbread
April 14, 2010: It’s generally believed that tea first arrived in England sometime during the 16th century. At this time, most people ate just two meals a day, breakfast and lunch.
To control midday hunger, the practice of drinking tea around 3 o’clock with a light snack quickly became a popular afternoon delight in England.
To experience a little British tea, I stopped into a British tea shop on my way through Lawrence, Kansas. BRITS is located on 929 Massachusetts Street and is a great place to explore British tea, biscuits, and jam.
As I walked in the shop, immediately to my right was a treasure displaying all sorts of Alice in Wonderland themed tea items. Very fitting, considering Lewis Carroll, the author of the original Alice in Wonderland book was British.
Brits has basically every Alice in Wonderland tea accessory you could possibly want: teapots, teapot cozies, mugs, saucers, plates, and more.
When I finally had enough of Alice, I spent a lot of time looking at Brits selection of British teas. The popular brands they sell are Yorkshire, TY-PHOO, PG Tips, Miles, Ashby’s of London, and Ahmad Tea London.
I’ve never tried any of these so I grabbed a set of Ashby’s of London to enjoy British afternoon tea at home.
Since British tea time just wouldn’t be the same without a British dessert, I headed towards the snack section.
Brits has a large variety of British biscuits, items that are hard to come by in shops around Kansas.
Outside the the tea shop
Homfield Bakery and Mr. Kipling are the most popular brands. They offer lemon curd tarts, treade tarts, cherry bakewells, and mini battenbergs. All delightful treats to have with hot tea.
Off in a section all their own, I discovered a unique British biscuit called biscottea. I bought some to pair with the Ashby’s of London tea I planned to buy.
I chose the honeybrush tea shortbread, which is “created with African honeybrush herbal tea” and uses all natural, organic ingredients.Brits also sells blueberry, chai, mint, and earl grey Bisottea shortbread.
I was excited about these cookies because tea is used to make them. How neat!
Apparently the tea leaves used to make these biscuits are “grown on the same mountain as the Rooibos (Red tea) plant.” Rooibos tea, an African tea, is very popular right now.
They have a unique flavor. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think I taste a hint of honey, and they’re crunchy with a crumbly outer texture
The tea and cookies were the highlight of my experience, yet I was largely I was impressed with Brits’ selection of jams and marmalades.
Here I am enjoying British Tea Time
Brits carries British brands which include Wilkins & Sons Ltd and Thursdays Cottage. The preserves and marmalades from Wilkins & Sons come in variety of flavors. I saw gooseberry jam, damson jam, wild blueberry, and orange & tangerine.
Each jar of Thursdays Cottage marmalades is homemade. I don’t know if anyone’s ever tasted I blood orange marmalade, three fruit marmalade, and grapefruit marmalade, I would like to try some of these flavors sometime.
After my trip to Brits, I enjoyed a quiet British teatime at home with my family. It was great fun for me being a Kansas girl and all!
