As a distraction from baby bluebirds (keep your fingers crossed: they've made it through another day), we went to the Tea House on Canyon Road - a detour from taking A's car in to be serviced. It's a place that I love to go to - outside shady tables, tiny pears growing on a tree, a warren of rooms inside, working wi-fi (most of the time). The trouble is - it's a tea house, and I don't like tea. That last statement is one that perplexes Americans, since I clearly violate a favorite cultural stereotype, but I don't. I'll drink herbal tea happily, and under duress some kinds of black tea with lemon, but English Tea (and yes, I accept that they have many. many. many other types here) always, to me, tastes of that moment around 3 p.m. when the tea trolley used to turn up at the Graduate Studies Committee meetings back in Oxford, in Wellington Square. These meetings were always orchestrated by the sound of skateboaders jumping and clattering off the ramps outside (externally), and by people taking High Principled Stances (inside), and 3 p.m. was a moment to get business done informally, and fight over who could get to the bourbon biscuits first (for those of you who don't know them - chocolate cookies sandwiched together with chocolate cream), rather than make do with the plainer digestives or ginger biscuits.
But today, I branched out - green chai with whitened sage and mint, which was perfectly palatable, apart from the milk (I admit that's inevitable, with chai, even if I'd opted for soy, which I like even less). And we shared an almond and cranberry scone, which, even if I don't in theory especially like scones, was also extremely good.
Don't like scones, don't like tea, drinks tea with lemon - I think you have something against the British.
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