Rib Eye with Garlic & Rosemary Jus, Potatoes roasted in Duck Fat and Winter Salad

Was hoping for crispier potatoes, may have par-boiled them a little too long before roasting at too low a temperature (dodgy oven!).

The Tea Centre

Silver Needles

Depending on where you’re from, it may come as something of a surprise to you that Tea is the most widely consumed beverage on the planet (OK, excluding water which by composition makes up the majority of just about every other beverage anyway). Tea is drunk more than beer, milk, Coke, and even coffee.

What!? Tea is more consumed than coffee? But there are coffee shops everywhere! Who ever heard of a Teaccino?*
*copyright, copyright, copyright.

To be honest, this is somewhat similar to finding out that the most common name in the world is Mohammed. Statistically, it is. There are more people named Mohammed (or its variant spellings) than there is anyone else; just not here. We don’t know about it because it’s not popular in our culture. So it goes with tea. The coffee culture in Australia is massive. There are coffee shops everywhere. Luckily for us, our interest is so developed that there is a thriving specialty coffee scene here too. We aren’t restricted to the abominable factory-line, lowest common denominator, stale, tepid slop they serve up at Starbucks or Gloria Jeans or McCafe. We have options. There is some really good coffee out there made by people who don’t just make it for the money.

But what of Tea? It might not be as popular as coffee here but it’s still ubiquitous. You can get it at just about any of those same coffee shops. You and everyone you know probably have a pack of Twinings tea bags in the back of the cupboard. Right next to that nasty jar of Blend 43. See my point?

So while specialty tea rooms and retailers may not be nearly as prevalent as cafes, they do exist.
Located in the Albert Lane development off of the Queen St. Mall in Brisbane is one of The Tea Centre’s three Tea Rooms (the others are in Sydney and Southport) where, unlike some other specialty tea retailers, you can actually sit down and enjoy a cup of it.

All decked out with glass walls and wooden floors & shelves, The Tea Centre is a nice, warm feeling place that strikes just the right balance between hipster-chic and Grandma-cosiness. In between the multi-level seating, the shelves are packed from floor to ceiling with a plethora of tea pots, cosies, strainers, cups, scoops, spoons, books and of course hundreds of jars of tea, including some beautifully wrapped bundles of tea leaves that blossom into flower like shapes as they infuse in the pot. It’s like being in the best smelling antique store in the world, except that everything is brand new and beautiful. Taking that in to mind, I should point out that the clientele was almost exclusively trendy young females. Guys, if your girlfriend goes to craft markets or reads Frankie magazine you should probably take her here as soon as possible (Tea Centre? More like Twee Centre amiright?)

On offer are varying sizes of pots of any of their stocked teas and a small selection of sweet cakes and slices. We ordered a small pot of the Ginger Bread blend (black tea with caramel, almond, cinnamon and ginger brittle). The Tea Centre prides itself on not using any artificial flavours or preservatives and judging by the variety of variously shapes and colours in the pot, I’m fairly confident that all of those extra things in there were the real deal. It certainly tasted like of those things, which is to say fairly nice and Christmas-y. However, I was more interested in something a little more pure. Having never tried White Tea (that doesn’t mean “with milk” by the way, it’s a type of tea) before, I decided I should go straight to the top and ordered one of the “Premium Pots” called Silver Needles. This stuff is very rare, apparently only picked on 2 days per year and retails (in store!) for about $2000 per kilo. You can try it a whole lot cheaper however, with the Premium Pots filling about two cups and going for $12 each. I suppose the best way to describe it is to imagine the difference between black tea and green tea, then magnify that by an order of magnitude on top of the green tea. It was very light, fresh and grassy with an almost pastoral aroma reminiscent of cut grass and hay. I’m not sure I’d go around ordering pots of it for $12 but it was certainly something different and curious.

Along with our tea we ordered a peanut butter and chocolate brownie that was definitely presented extremely well (with a dusting of cocoa and dried rose petals adorning the plate) but failed to impress once in the mouth, coming off pretty dry and uninteresting.

My only other gripe with The Tea Centre is that for somewhere so specialized, the staff didn’t seem particularly knowledgeable about the tea itself. If they were, they didn’t go out of their way to show it. There wasn’t a lot of information forthcoming about the different types of tea beyond what was written down on our menus, but this might be a little too much to ask too early. If there is a budding specialty tea culture in Australia, it might need a little more development before we can expect passionate staff.

The tea itself is impressive though and not just by sheer quantity and variety. It tastes good and importantly, it tastes different. You’re going to experience a much higher quality product you can’t get in a super market and it’s a pleasure to sit there and sip it. I’ll be back not just because it’s good but because it’s an experience apart from the routine cup of coffee (delicious as that may be) you can get so many other places. Try it; you’ll probably end up taking some home. 

The Tea Centre
Albert Lane, Albert St/Queen St 
Brisbane, Queensland
07 3211 3856
www.theteacentre.com.au

Erin's Birthday Pancakes

She couldn't finish it all, but she wanted to. Job well done.

Angus Beef Sausages, Sweet Potato & Maple Mash, Grilled Tomato and Asparagus

Had to add a surprisingly lot of maple syrup to get it to come through the natural sweetness of the potato. Steamed the asparagus before tossing it through the hot rendered fat from the sausages; beautiful texture but I'd add a little pepper next time.