Here are some random write-ups of tea I experienced during a vacation last July to the Oregon Coast/Portland. At the time I was in the middle of buying a house/moving (yes, a terrible time for a vacation, but it had been planned before the house move!) and just didn’t have time to talk about my experiences. I’m finally pulling out my notes from the trip and my Tea Fest PDX program book to try to recall (to the best of my shit memory) some of the teas I sampled during the trip.
Portland Teacation #1: Oregon Coast
At the beginning of the trip my friend Todd and I stayed at a beach house (provided kindly for free by my Dad’s BFF, my “Uncle” Rob… who could turn that down!?) in Manzanita. We did a bit of traveling to nearby locations while we were there and had some lovely tea.
La Tea Da: Located in Tillamook, we got a flat tire on our rental car driving there from Manzanita (about a 45 minute trip when you aren’t on a spare donut!) so there was no way we were going to make our reservation in time… The shop was awesome when we finally got into cell range and could call and said we could come any time that day and they’d honor our reservation, so we could get the tire fixed as soon as we got into town. Needless to say, we had quite an appetite after that! I got the Queen’s Tea which had a lovely assortment of tea sandwiches and I was really impressed with some of the flavor pairings (I can’t remember the exact menu now, but I still remember how surprised I was that green apple with cinnamon spread and cheddar cheese was so good together!) There were also two HUGE scones and I remember they had some delicious flavorings, one was savory and one was sweet, I remember a blueberry sage scone as the sweet and some sort of cheese scone with spices as the savory one; they were so big I had to take them home! There was also an assortment of lovely petit fours desserts. That was the one day we got rained on heavily at the coast, so the tea I got with my lunch was Clementine Clove, since I wanted something with a warming spice note. It was a black tea, medium body, slightly astringent, and smelled of winter potporri spice; it tasted strongly of clove and cinnamon and had a tart tangerine note. I can’t remember what tea Todd ordered now, but I know he got a second pot that was Licorice flavored and tasted spot on for black licorice candy (something we both enjoy, even though the majority of people I know hate it!)
Mighty Thai: I had the most amazing shellfish bowl in buttered garlic at this place! Since it was a Thai restaurant (in Manzanita), I got my typical iced Thai tea. What was notable to both me and Todd is most Thai restaurants have their iced tea “pre-mixed” with the milk/creamer and Todd is Vegan; this place didn’t pre-mix their Thai tea so they could prepare it with coconut milk for Todd. It was good, but other than having a choice of dairy or dairy alternative, there wasn’t anything special about it. It was Thai iced tea!
Cannon Beach Chocolate Cafe: This chocolaterie in Cannon Beach had a small selection of Octavia teas available. I had three delicious chocolate truffles (I remember trying a chai spice and a lavender one… I think the third was likely some sort of sea salt caramel?) while sipping on a cup of French Breakfast tea, which I have reviewed here: https://steepster.com/mastressalita/posts/396706 . We came back later in the day to get some of their pre-brewed iced tea as well; Todd got the Wild Blueberry (a white tea), and I got the Peach Nectar (an oolong). They were both excellent, though I think I liked the Wild Blueberry I sampled from Todd’s cup a bit better than the peach oolong, just because it felt a little more thirst-quenching and we’d been in the sun a lot by that point.
Sweet Basil’s Cafe: A Cajun restaurant where we had dinner in Cannon Beach… I’m a spice wuss so I got the (not spicy at all) crab cakes, and they served sweet iced tea. I had to drink a lot of Pure Leaf bottled ice tea on the go during the trip, and having a fresh-brewed sweet iced tea was wonderful.
I had the matcha at La Tea Da. I quite liked it, but it wasn’t your cup of tea.
Your uncle’s place was great!