Guide to Tea

"If you are cold, tea will warm you.  If you are too heated, it will cool you. 

If you are depressed, it will cheer you.  If you are excited, it will calm you."

~ Gladstone, 1865

It is purported that more than five thousand years ago, Chinese Emperor Shen Nong, also known as the Divine Cultivator and the father of Chinese herbalism took his first sip of tea. Tea was drunk by the Zen monks to honor Buddha to maintain alertness in meditation and by Asian royalty to promote health. This drink of royalty became a necessity for people of all walks of life to socialize, to re-energize and to have a quiet respite. Today tea is the most popular beverage enjoyed worldwide, second to water.

THE LEAF
Tea comes from the Camillia sinensis plant. It is an evergreen shrub related to the flowering camellia. It is indigenous to a number of Asian countries, and particularly the area that spans the borders of China and India. It is strictly infused from the leaf. The leaves are harvested by hand and plucked evenly from the tree so they will wither and dry uniformly. The golden rule for plucking is "two leaves and a bud." Each tree will produce no more than ten ounces of finished dry leaf a year.  It takes about thirty-two hundred shoots to make a single pound of tea. As you can imagine this is a tedious process.

OUR TEAS
The Royal Tea Room & Gift Shoppe carries a wide selection of teas for any taste. Please stop in or call us to check availability of your favorite flavor!




To complete your tea time at home, we also carry the following tea accouterments:

• Doillies
• Teapots
• Sugar tongs
• Demi spoons
• Hand decorated sugars
• Infusers
• TEA SACS {disposable}
• Three-tiered caddies
• Misc. teacups {some vintage]
• Cake stands
• Pastry/tart servers
• Traditional strainer/infusers for decanting tea
• Assorted tea balls and infusers