Sit back, relax and enjoy a cup of tea with this Dabble Talks from Jackie of The London Tea Room. Jackie is sharing her passion and extensive knowledge of tea with two Dabble classes, Drink to Your Health and Tea 101.
How long have you been living in St. Louis? 27 years! We moved from England to St. Louis on March 17th 1988.
What did you do before you opened up The London Tea Room? I was a manager at English Living furniture (my parents store) and before that I was a travel agent for many years.
What made you take the leap and open The London Tea Room? We moved English Living from West county to downtown. We felt that we needed to offer a place for customers to come down and enjoy a shopping/restaurant experience and we opened the tea room, which was adjacent to the furniture store.
What can someone expect when coming into your shop for the first time? Well obviously lots of tea 🙂 I think people get a great atmosphere with a selection of very high quality teas that they can enjoy by the pot (with a delicious pastry or two) or they can purchase as loose leaf tea to take home with them.
What is your favorite tea? I think that is almost impossible to answer. Ooolong teas tend to be what I drink the most. My favorite of those is an oolong called The Drunken Concubine!!
How do you take your tea? All the time! haha. Seriously, my first cup of the day is always a black tea with milk like Irish Breakfast or Yorkshire Gold. I then move on to drinking oolongs or green – just the way it is. No milk or sugar.
When you’re not working what could we find you dabbling in? Reading. I love to read, especially crime novels. I’m also a board member for a not for profit called ISMRD which raises money and awareness for some very rare diseases (which my daughter has). I’m also working on my tea certification with the World tea Academy. All of this keeps me pretty busy!
Drink to Your Health | Fri. March 27th from 7-8:30pm
Tea 101 | Fri. April 24th from 7-8:30pm