Part I of II

By T. A. Finklang

Tea for two. Tea and Sympathy. Boston Tea Party. Afternoon Tea Dances. Teatime.

Tea. It’s a part of our history, going back to the inception of our country, in the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. The British, now synonymous with all things tea, jumped on the bandwagon slightly later. Even further back into our human history, the Oriental cultures made actual ceremonies out of what is, after all, a leaf.

“Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world.”
–Tiien Yiheng

But a very special leaf, precursor of wars and controversy, available in many redolent varieties, beloved by more humans than any other beverage, yet one that, sadly, has not made the transition to modern America all that well. This noble leaf has been ill served here. A beverage with such an ancient lineage deserves better treatment.

Can operators right this terrible wrong? And, more importantly, can we convince customers that there’s something worth trying here?

Tea, as some of our up-scale hotels can tell you, is a highly profitable commodity. Huge international tea companies sell teas, tisanes and herbals in hip, socially conscious packages. The American Medical Association tells us that green tea can save our very lives. We have the Cult of Chai, tea’s answer to the latte. But, mostly, we have just plain old tea–we all serve it in our establishments, often poorly, in hot or iced form. We can do better.

Let’s explore a few different aspects of tea. But first, what do you really know about this most versatile of beverages?

While many things, like herbal concoctions, are called, generically “tea,” there is really only one: Camellia Sinensis, known for nearly 5000 years to provide a pleasing beverage. The differences in flavors and aromas come from fermentation times and methods, additives, terroir, climate, handling and quality of pick

Legend has it that Emperor Shen Nong of China was road-tripping about his vast empire and, taking a rest one day, prepared to imbibe a lovely cup of boiled water, when a falling tea leaf floated into his cup. The resulting liquor was more appealing to the eye, nose and constitution of the emperor than plain water and it quickly became “the thing” with the ancient Chinese hoi polloi and with Zen Masters.

Tea was further popularized within the aggregate Zen community, making a leap that way from China to Japan, where it was elevated to grand and lofty heights in Zen tea ceremonies. Called Cha-no-yu, for which actual houses specific to its service were built, it became the bailiwick of the Geisha, giving them something else to do with their hands.

Around 1600, the Oriental trade routes opened up to Europe and tea was introduced by the Dutch to the earliest American colonies and the British Isles, where it became the drink of choice for the upper crust. It soon replaced ale as the national drink in England; some say the sudden sobriety explains the flood of new taxes on the Colonies, including the Townshend Act of 1767 on tea, which further resulted in the world’s largest cuppa being suddenly created in Boston Harbor.

By the early 1900s, tea settled in America to uses we still recognize today: as an afternoon repast and respite and an occasion for social mingling. Its most popular form, iced tea, comes to us as a lucky accident of a heat wave at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, where a tea vendor decided to cut his losses by pouring his unsellable hot product over ice and giving it away. Thus was born one of the most popular beverages ever. In the south, many hostesses’ reputations were made or broken on their ability to produce a proper sweet tea.

While iced tea is ubiquitous today, the true tea lover is frequently at a loss when in search of a proper pot of hot tea. Its basic service seems to baffle even the professional restaurateur. Ask for hot tea and, after the server is done rolling their eyes and whining in the kitchen about the idiot at table 7 who wants a damned hot tea, the star-crossed guest is likely to receive tepid water in a cup with one limp tea bag and a slimy hunk of lemon on the side. Or a pot filled with hot water beside a cup also filled with hot water (where to put the tea?) and a tiny sugar caddie stuffed with various herbal ‘teas,’ with nary a bag of black tea to be found.

Ask for milk with your tea and many establishments will send out small non-dairy creamers along with the lemon. (Have you ever seen some poor, misguided tea novice put both the non-dairy cream and the lemon in the tea? The result resembles cement.) And don’t get me started on the hapless server who warms up my cup for me with more tepid water.

They don’t know that there are much better ways to serve and profit from tea. But it’s easy.

Hot tea

Teas, both black and green, as well as herbals, must be brewed in a pot, not in the cup. This is important in English style tea, as the tea should be added to the milk and/or sugar, not the other way around.

Into an individual service teapot, pour water as close to boiling as possible.

Place an empty cup on a saucer covered with a paper doily and accompanied with a teaspoon (called that because it should accompany tea).

Pre-warm the cup by filling with hot water; empty before bringing to the table.

Provide a selection of teas and tisanes in an attractive container; all of the major tea companies have all the tools you could possible need for presentation. Do not proffer just one, lonely, insipid teabag.

Include:

A black tea (Lipton, Tetley, Twining, any orange pekoe (orange pekoe refers to the grade of the tea and not to the flavor; it does not taste like oranges)

An English Breakfast tea (a hearty black tea)

An Earl Grey (black tea flavored with bergamot oil, which is reminscent of oranges)

Several herbals and tisanes: peppermint, chamomile, apple cinnamon, blackberry, red zinger, etc.)

A green tea (increasingly popular since some research indicates it may aid in cancer prevention.)

A decaffeinated black tea (like decaffeinated English or Irish Breakfast tea)

Optional: A Darjeeling (light and fragrant), a Formosa Oolong (a cross between black and green teas, embodying the best of both), a Lapsang Souchong (a deep, smoky tea)

Ask if your guest cares for lemon or milk/cream, then bring only what they ask for.

Ask before “refreshing the pot.” Do not automatically add additional water to either the cup or the pot. Ask first.

The above tea selection should please just about everyone and you do not have to invest the farm, since all of the major tea companies provide food service packages in a variety/sampler style pack.

And don’t make your guests beg for another tea bag to add to the diluted mess left by the wayward warm-up pour. Just as you do not put fewer coffee beans into your refills, do not think for a minute that a used teabag will make the second steep as delicious as the first. Cough up the tea bags, no extra charge.

For iced tea, if at all possible, brew your own, but only if you can produce a consistent product. Fresh brewed tea is cheap, delicious and true. Otherwise, bag-in-box may do the trick. Most of the available fountain soft drink providers offer a line of plain and flavored teas. If you can support it, offer a fruity iced tisane as well, as a non-caffeinated alternative.

Serve iced tea in a large, tall and attractive glass.

Serve with a long handled teaspoon, made specifically for this purpose.

Serve with a wedge of lemon, fully 1/4 of a whole lemon. No wafer-thin slivers of lemon.

If possible, (this is a nice touch) offer simple syrup (equal parts hot water and sugar, cooled into a syrup; good bartenders make their own) with your iced teas. This is the piece de resistance of iced tea service. simple syrup blends seamlessly into cool tea, forestalling the Glob of Undiluted Sugar at the Bottom of the Glass. This one touch will get you noticed big-time.

Making a huge splash on the market of late are the bottled teas, like Arizona, Tazo and others. These are nice to have in addition to your brewed iced tea and offer guests an alternative, one they can carry out with them when they go. They’re great for take-out menus, since they are self-contained and won’t likely end up all over the floor of the car upon hitting a bump. If possible, carry a selection of four or five different flavors/styles/brands. As a profit item, you can get as much for a bottled tea as a bottled beer, for a fraction of the cost.

–T.A. Finklang has been working in and writing about the hospitality business for 27 years and loves black tea with milk and honey.”

Profitabili-tea

Another way to build tea business is through tea as an event. When tea is in the forefront, such as in some of the nicer hotels, like Chicago’s Drake Hotel or any of the Four Seasons or Denver’s Brown Palace, it becomes a destination event. It’s also provides us with a chance to examine tea’s potential for profit.

Four women go to tea one afternoon. They sit in a beautiful atrium/lobby/sunporch/patio and an uniformed server approaches with the tea menu. Soft harp or piano music plays in the background. Softly filtering, late afternoon light dances around the room.

The menu contains several packages and some incremental add-ons. The most popular package is the full High Tea: a pot of tea of your choice, one or two small scones served with imported Devonshire cream and jams, three or four gourmet finger sandwiches, three or four dessert or petit four offerings. The expected price? Easily above $20 for what amounts to about $3-4 worth of product!

But do these customers care? Maybe if they were checking the bill based on what they paid for lunch the day before. But some customers willingly pay for the quality of their experience, not the quantity of the food and drink. And since this is a pitifully small amount of food, the incremental sale of a salad or additional sandwiches or soup for $6-10 dollars is almost assured. And add to that the potential of some port or sherry add-ons at the end, or a celebratory flute of champagne and you’re looking at a potential $38+ per person average check!

Of course, your turn time is sacrificed—tea, done well, takes at least two hours per seating, which leaves really only one seating on weekdays. But you can pack in about three turns on a Saturday and even better on holidays. I know my set of tea drinkers has their calendars primed for reminders when we can make Christmas Tea reservations at the Brown Palace. It’s our special holiday treat to ourselves every year.

And tea doesn’t have to be liveried waiters, soft music and hushed voices; think out of the box! Have a rock & roll tea, or a themed Victorian tea, complete with loaned shawls, hats and gloves. Or how about a funky New Age tea, with whole grain scones, organic creams, whole wheat vegetarian sandwiches and chocolate dipped fruits, all to the tune of an Indian Sitar? Or a Formal Japanese tea, with all the appropriate accompaniments.

Do the math; if each patron averages about $30, and you seat only 9 parties of four in that dead hour or slow Saturday, you’ve enhanced your daily sales upwards of $1000.

The possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination. We all have tables and chairs that wait, unoccupied, in those waning hours of the late afternoon. Host a tea Happy Hour; what a relaxing alternative to the crush of a traditional happy hour: sell soul, sell peace, sell memories.

You have the room, the resources, and the product to turn non-revenue producing hours into high profit makers. On something as cheap as tea, biscuits and some really small sammies. Imagine that!

But if nothing else please, good restaurateurs and publicans, please just give me a basic, well-prepared, decent cuppa tea when I order it on my next visit to your establishment.

I, and a great deal of the world’s population, from China and England, Turkey and Russia, India, Sri Lanka and Japan, will thank you for it, with humble heart, softened nerves and appreciative cash.

–T.A. Finklang has been working in and writing about the hospitality business for 27 years and loves black tea with milk and honey.”