Teatime Journeys: Washington

Yesterday I went with my next door neighbor, Lisa, to tea in Washington, D.C.-- in Georgetown to be more specific. Just to orient you, Georgetown is located right on the Potomac River. Georgetown actually predates Washington, D.C.--it was established when it was still a part of Maryland in 1751.

Georgetown is full of beautiful row homes, most of which date to the 1800s. I love Victorian row homes (really most old houses), and we got there early, so we took the opportunity to walk around some of the residential districts before our tea reservation.

We had tea at the Lady Camellia tea room, which was itself located in a mint green row home. This is a fairly new tearoom (I don't think it is even a year old yet) with some French vibes. I really like the name; it's a clever play on the name of the tea plant--camellia sinensis. The tea room is literally one room--kind of like having tea in an old fashion parlor right off cobblestone streets. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to take a picture of the cute table located right inside the bay window pictured below.

There were five tables located in the tea room, and I managed to take a picture of two to share:

On the wall above the fireplace were clever built-in shadowboxes displaying china and some of the macaroons served in the tea room:

One of my favorite things about this tea room was all of the beautiful mismatched china. Everyone had a different combination of Royal Albert china, and there were a lot of people there, so that was pretty impressive.

Here is the menu:

and a list of the scones and pastries of the day.

I choose the jasmine green tea, which was delicious.

(By the way, even the flatware was by Royal Albert--Old Country Roses, which has pretty gold accents)

The food came out on a tiered tray:

On the bottom were the sandwiches: brie and apple, egg salad with watercress, and cucumber. My favorite of the three was the brie and apple--delicious!

Next we had white chocolate cranberry scones and an apple croissant (both very good).

For dessert, I chose a passionfruit and a milk chocolate macaroon. Lisa got a vanilla bean macaroon and a crème brûlée tartlet. The macaroons were great, especially the passionfruit one.

After tea, we walked around a bit more and eventually walked over the C&O canal. My family has been in the Northern Virginia/Washington, D.C. area for generations and I have an ancestor who worked one of the locks along this canal. One day I'd like to walk the trail along its bank.