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Taking time for tea
The Apple Blossom Tea Room & Gifts
By Chris Little
Photography by Tara Hope
"Tea! Thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid," wrote the British playwright Colley Cibber in 1707, aptly describing the reverence tea drinkers tend to feel toward their beloved beverage and the rituals surrounding it.
But Fairfield resident Brandi Bolger found herself steeping in the world of tea for reasons more pragmatic than poetic. "I needed a job," she explains. "I was separated from my husband, and we were ultimately going to get a divorce. I'd been a stay-at-home mom for seven years and needed a way to support myself." A local tea room was hiring, and Bolger figured she was qualified for the job: "I thought, 'I can cook and I can clean-I've been doing that for the last seven years!' I had no idea what a tea room was, but when I went over there for my interview, I was in love. It was one of those 'Aha!' moments."
British tea rituals and Victorian aesthetics had long been, well, Bolger's cup of tea. "I grew up drinking tea with my mother," she says. "And I've always been a girly girl. I love Anne of Green Gables. I love Sense and Sensibility. And I love to entertain, to have people over and cook for them."
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