Returning to the Tea of the Crime

I remember reading a blog post with pride.

Sadly, you can’t read it now. It’s been removed.

It was by @jackie of Tea Trade, and was a great rant about poor tea and poorer service. It dripped with sarcasm.

Naturally, I felt that it was my influence rubbing off on our normally mild-mannered Tea Trade host.

To sum up, it was badly made tea and a really bad attitude.

And @jackie and @peter have never been back.

But now, it was sort of time to do so…

When I say ‘sort of ‘ time, we accompanied them to the same chain – which has three branches – but a different location.

We pulled up in front of a huge sign that read “The Full Cup”. This is an unfortunate name, as it is not actually the tea shop, but a speciality plus-size bra retailer next door, so you can only imagine the misunderstandings and hilarity that might have ensued if I’d popped in and asked for a nice hot cupful.

Luckily, I had been forewarned.

The little shopping centre itself was lovely. I was later told that the Virginia Beach Police Department had worked as consultants on every aspect of the design – the centre was designed to foil and/or discourage every possible crime in the locale. What a great idea.

But Police Departments are not wise to the ways of the crimes of bad tea or bad service, so there were no guarantees.

We ordered a huge pot of chocolate truffle tea – the same tea from the controversial review. We also ordered cake to a significant extent.

Having been up until really late the night before, it really was time for a good relaxing round of tea, conversation and cake.

And Vivaldi.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-DAH-Da

VROOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!

Da-da-da-da-da-da-DAH-Da.

There’s something about locals in Virginia Beach, next door to the largest naval base ever and with a jet fighter training school next door. They have a pause button: everything stops when the jets go over.

The pot was huge; the tea was OK; the cakes were excellent.

The conversation was brilliant. Everyone was talking at once to add to the fun.

The ‘server’ to use the American word, was all by herself. She was pleasant, enthusiastic and very polite. Really delightful.

There was no need for sarcasm. No need for raised voices. No need for tension.

Which is how it should be.