My Cup of Tea!

This past week was our second travel break, and I had the pleasure to travel to the British Isles for the entire week with one of my friends. We started off visiting friends in London, then ventured north to Edinburgh and ended in the lively city of Dublin. It was nice to be in an English-speaking country again and have no problems asking people on the streets for directions, since I seem to be a natural at getting lost. One of my favorite things about the British Isles was that they set aside and hour or so every afternoon to enjoy a nice cup of tea, often times accompanied with a scrumptious scone. My friends in London had been telling me the whole time how I needed to go and experience high tea at a local tea shop at some point during my travels. Finally, once we had time to relax in Edinburgh, Scotland, we made it to a cute tea shop my friends recommended to me.

We soon learned that drinking tea in Britain is an entire culture in and of itself. Most of the people are very serious about their tea time, which we came to notice. Our tea experience took place at a brightly colored tea shop called Eteaket. Inside they had an entire four-paged menu dedicated to all the different types of teas available to us. Being first-timers to tea time, it took us a good bit to decide what tea we were in the mood for.

They even had food options to choose from, since most people eat a light snack along with their cup of tea. We finally decided on our tea flavors, mine being White Peach with a homemade scone. Not only would this be my first time trying British tea, but also my first time eating a traditional scone fresh from the oven. They brought our tea out to us and we each had our own personal tea pots, along with a tea cup and our scones. I felt like the queen!

The tea was everything I expected and more! And the scone made me feel like I was back in the South enjoying a warm biscuit. We had some fun attempting to drink our tea with our pinky’s up, just like royalty. I will definitely be having tea parties from now on to keep this cultural experience going. As they always say, keep calm and have a cup of tea!