Time For Tea: September 2013

There is not trouble so great or grave that cannot be much

diminished by a nice cup of tea.

Bernard-Paul Heroux

Bettys, Harrogate - Saturday 28th September 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

Olivia Ryan

Jean Thacker

Kathryn Asbury

Iris Asbury

Gillian Kerrigan

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A return to Bettys, this time to the original in Harrogate to celebrate the birthday of my Mum, Jean. The typical high standards and elegance of these very fine Yorkshire establishments were well maintained and we enjoyed a very fine tea in the company of some very special friends.

Olivia - joined by her mother, grandmother and godmother for the occasion. Kathryn and her Mum, Gillian, and eldest daughter, Iris, were excellent company and it was very lovely to have the opportunity to meet up with them mid-term on a fleeting visit north.

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Bettys, Harrogate

As I have recorded elsewhere in this blog, Swiss confectioner Frederick Belmont, established Bettys in Harrogate in 1919. Immensely successful from the start it was the beginning of a local legend and is still a place that people flock too. Only yesterday I overheard colleagues (who had no idea of my plans for today) at lunch in Sussex discussing a visit to Bettys in Harrogate in hushed tones.

It is still a family business and maintains its commitment to very high quality goods and service, and fabulous confectionery.

Today we sat downstairs in what in known as The Spindler Gallery - an elegant room where every alcove and wall is decorated by marquetry pictures from the famous Spindler workshop in Alsace - another reminder of Bettys European links. Continental scenes are accompanied by many specially created Yorkshire locations and it was very pleasing that we were placed below a very familiar vista.

One significant mystery is why the cafe is called Bettys at all. No-one actually knows, although there are thought to be a number of possible candidates for 'Betty' - which range from Elizabeth Bowes Lyon - later the Queen Mother; a manageress of Harrogate Spa, Betty Lupton, a local doctor's daughter who died of tuberculosis to a small girl who interrupted the first board meeting when the name of the tea rooms was being chosen. In the shop you can buy a book of stories which imagine who Betty might have been - never let it be said Bettys would miss out on a creative marketing opportunity.

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Tea was all that we might have expected. Paul and Gillian chose the Yorkshire cream tea, and rated the scones very highly. The clotted cream and jam was copious and much enjoyed. Others opted for a range of toasted and sweet goods. I had my first pikelets of the odyssey and they were very delicious. This was followed by a raspberry macaroon with fresh raspberries, which was quite idyllic. Paul's only criticism was what he felt to be the excessive bitterness of the coffee, however those of us with the discrimination to opt for tea were well pleased with our beverages.

Mum enjoyed a rarebit scone and engadine cake (layers of meringue and hazelnut) and Kathryn a delicate frangipane.

Olivia so enjoyed her bacon muffin that it was necessary to order a second.

Perhaps the most exotic item, however, was Iris' gingerbread bat.

Beautiful silverware, elegant china and the discreet attentiveness of smart and helpful waitresses - all hallmarks of the Bettys experience - made for a truly lovely afternoon.

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Three Generations of Friendship

Kathryn has been one of my very closest and most special friends since we were in sixth form together. At one stage in our lives we spent much of our time together and in and out of each other's houses. Our mothers were sources of advice, support, welcome and food at all hours and in many different situations. It has been lovely that in the years since we have both moved away from home, started families and had to maintain a more geographically distant friendship that our mothers have become very good friends who see each other regularly, and that whilst we can only get together once in a while our daughters love spending time with each other.

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Twenty-Fourth Tea - Twenty-Fourth Year

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The Birthday Girl

Today is my Mum's 77th birthday, and it has been lovely that we have been able to travel up for the weekend to celebrate with her.

Everyone feels their Mum is really the one who typifies the nature of the maternal role, but I know that it's actually my Mum. Thoughtful, resourceful, supportive, considerate, and utterly loving and giving she is a very good friend to many and lynch pin for her family. A teacher and musician, she has been a role model and an inspiration. Her strength and love has allowed me to become the person I am, and so it was essential that part of this odyssey should be celebration of her too.

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The Spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort and refinement.
Arthur Gray - The Little Tea Book, 1903

The Savoy, Strand, London - 14th September 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

Olivia Ryan

Very Reverend Canon Peter Newby

Honorary Tea Takers

Kate Taylor

Greg Ireton

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The Savoy was the key place on my tea locations wish list, and, knowing this, the delightful Kate Taylor, sent to me for my birthday a voucher for a Champagne afternoon tea at said establishment. She is a very generous and generally marvellous person and ideally this tea would have been in her company, but the rather inconvenient fact that she choses to live in her homeland of Australia has made this rather tricky. Therefore I have decided that she and her boyfriend Greg should be awarded the status of honorary tea-takers for this occasion. We had their picture with us at the table and drank to them in the various high quality beverages on offer.

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Built on the site of the thirteenth century Savoy Palace, The Savoy Hotel was built in the late 1880s by theatre impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte, with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas. It was London's first luxury hotel, and its innovations included electric lighting, en suite bathrooms and constant hot and cold running water. It was at The Savoy that Auguste Escoffier first came to eminence in the world of cuisine, and where he created many of his most famous dishes, such as Peach Melba, Melba toast and Fraise a la Sarah Bernhardt. (Although later in his career at the Ritz he was horrified by the rise of the hotel afternoon tea: "How can one eat jam, cakes and pastries and enjoy a dinner - the king of meals - an hour or two later?")

The list of emminent guests and performers at the hotel is extraordinary - just a few examples: George VI became the first reigning monarch to dine in any hotel at a private party here; Churchill liked to lunch at The Savoy with his war cabinet; Gershwin gave the British premiere of Rhapsody in Blue here, and when the hotel hosted a ball to celebrate the coronation of the Queen in 1953, the cabaret was under the direction of Laurence Olivier, Noel Coward and John Mills.

Always a byword for luxury the hotel was extensively refurbished from 2007 to 2010 (at a cost of £220 million...) and not only opulent and elegant it is now also unusually energy efficient and environmentally conscious in its running.

Afternoon tea is now served in the Thames Foyer (which leads to the striking Art Deco Thames Restaurant). This is a large room lit by a beautiful glass cupola which, before the refurbishment, had been covered since the Second World War. It is airy, light, comfortably elegant and provides very congenial surroundings.

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Tea was very fine indeed, as one might well expect in such a place.

Decisions, decisions... Olivia gets to grips with the 31 varieties of tea on offer:

A 'first course' consisted of sandwiches and scones, which were replenished swiftly at our whim. The scones were exceptionally good - in the odyssey so far, I think only Brown's can compete on this score. My only quibble was with the bread for some of the sandwiches, which had some pungent seed in it, which gave it a rather aniseed-y taste, and was not really to my taste. The following cakes and pastries, though, swiftly made up for this. Instead of a further cake stand the waitress brought a large tray of elegant rows of some six or seven different petit fours, for us to choose as many as we would like. The chocolate mouse with salted caramel shortbread was particularly lovely, although the raspberry and chocolate macaron was a close second. To finish a smiling waiter then brought the cake trolley with three different large cakes, to cut slices at our discretion.

Escoffier was right to be concerned. I am not sure if I will need to eat again for some days now.

I would also like to commend the rococo tea strainers which I was most taken with - sadly it didn't seem the done thing, though, to attempt to smuggle one out in my handbag.

A pianist playing in the central filigree pergola was a pleasing ambient detail of the afternoon, and despite her expression of intense boredom, she played very well. Gershwin, Scott Joplin, Bach - these were all pleasing reminder of different people and times in my life. A piano solo version of David Bowie's "All you young dudes" was slightly more surreal in this context, and when she struck up Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' I did nearly choke on my sandwich. It certainly was an interesting element of the whole experience.

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Once again we had excellent company for tea, this time in the person of our friend, Peter, whom we have known since he became the chaplain at Oxford just after we went down. He is someone else who we got to know though going to Lourdes. Incredibly important in key events of our family life, he was the principal celebrant at our wedding and baptised Olivia, as well as being a good friend and our very generous host on some fantastic Italian holidays, most recently inviting us to join him this August for a marvellous 'Newby Tour' in the Marche.

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Twenty-Third Tea - Twenty-Third Year

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More really should be said of Kate. We met in January 1997 when Kate came to England to be a graduate gap student at King's Bruton, the school where I had begun my teaching career the term before. She is most definitely a kindred spirit and a very special friend. She is clever, funny and creative and travelled from Canada to be my witness at our wedding. She has now for years been very happily settled back in Australia, and whilst we have never met Greg, we can only assume that, given he has the combination of good taste and dubious sanity to chose to spend his life with Kate, he must be a very good thing - we would really loved to have had tea with them but Paul says I can't fly to Australia just to do this so we will have to put up with this compromise.

Kate always does a great line in birthday cards so my Savoy voucher was accompanied by this:

The staff at The Savoy had clearly noticed the birthday greetings on the voucher and so I was one of the ten people in the restaurant that received the celebratory treatment - the pianist struck up the familiar tune and a phalanx of waiting staff glided to appropriate tables with adorned plates - I didn't feel any need to tell them my birthday was seven months ago, after all this is simply another of my many celebrations - hurrah!