Silver Tips Tea Blog

Mother’s Day 2012

Anupa — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:35:54 +0000

We love Mother’s day at the Tea Room. Everyone is in a good mood, families are together and Moms get a day off! Of our 4 seatings, 3 were very full. We did have open tables at our last seating and were able to accommodate several walk-ins. Our Afternoon Tea service was well received with high marks given to the spectacular Italian gelatos that we served in glasses as well as the Clotted Cream served with our Scones. Thanks to all our guests who spent Mother’s day with us. See you next year!

Makaibari served in high places!

Anupa — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:58:26 +0000

First I learn that the Chief Minister of West Bengal (India) served Hillary Clinton Makaibari tea at a meeting during her recent visit to India and then I learn that 3 Sake masters (one a 55th generation master, yes, believe it!) was given Makaibari 2nd flush after a Sake event at La Maison du Chocolat yesterday in Manhattan. Makaibari is being enjoyed in some interesting places, indeed!

Makaibari Tea Chests

Anupa — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:19:35 +0000

Not too long ago, tea was packed only in Tea Chests. Alas, like so many things, this wonderful item is quickly becoming an antique. Thanks to vacuum packing, triple-insulated paper sacks and other more efficient ways of packaging, tea chests are now to be treasured. Even Makaibari Estate which, until very recently, only used chests now uses them just for its most prized offerings, such as Silver Tips. Here are two of our famous tea chests being displayed by Honest Tea at one of their recent outdoor events. A tip for our other wholesale customers who have the good fortune to possess a chest – keep them close! They are a rarity.

Our Salad Dressing

Anupa — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:20:16 +0000

Yes, our Dill Vinaigrette gets a lot of compliments. It’s our House Dressing and pictured here on our Mixed Greens accompanying the Goat Cheese Quiche. Enjoy the most recent compliment:

The meal was delicious. Do you share the salad dressing recipe? You should franchise in Maine!

Thanks, Elizabeth. Taken under advisement and no, we’re not ready to share…I’m so sorry! We need you to keep coming back!

Our Unusual Tuna Sandwich

Mother’s Day Menu, May 13, 2012

Anupa — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:58:06 +0000

In response to customer demand, here’s a better listing of our Menu for our Special Afternoon Tea for Mother’s Day. Each year we try to do a blend of old and new by featuring both our signature sandwiches as well as offering new selections. This year, we’re using artisan breads for most of them and they include Brioche, Olive bread, 7-Grain Baguette, Pumpernickel, Potato, Rye as well as White. Sandwiches will include an Egg salad with Watercress, Turkey with Lingonberry Sauce, Pineapple Cream Cheese, Nutty Carrot, Salmon Mousse, our signature Tarry Chicken, Tuna with Sweet Relish, Hummus and Lentil for our vegetarian patrons and our popular Olive Tapenade. A Petite Scone with Clotted Cream and Preserves will be followed by a choice of Desserts.

We will be offering 8 – 10 types of teas, both hot and iced and they will range from Breakfast blends to Green, Flavored, Earl Grey, Sweet Iced Teas as well as a refreshing Summer Fruit Lemonade. A free gift will be given to every Mom!

Silver Tips will not be offering its regular menu on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 13. If you would like to treat your Mom to our elegant Afternoon Tea, please make your reservations for one of our 4 seatings – 10.30 am, 12.30 pm, 2.30 pm and 4.30 pm. The 12.30 seating is the most popular and filling up fast. You can call us at 914 332 8515 or e-mail at events@silvertipstea.com. The Afternoon Tea service is prix-fixe at $32/person which includes tax and gratuity. We look forward to welcoming you on Mother’s Day!

Our teas now at Chelsea’s Table at Chelsea Piers

Anupa — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:17:59 +0000

A great new cafe has just opened at Pier 62 at Chelsea Piers in New York. It’s by the well-known Stonyfield Yogurt company and features all kinds of delicious and healthy foods and beverages. We were so pleased to be contacted by them for our loose leaf teas and are happy to report that 10 of our Organic teas are now being offered there. They hope to open another one in Stamford, CT soon. They have received a fair amount of publicity last week in the zagat blog as well as in The New York Times.

Nice comment from Wholesale Customer

Anupa — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:06:10 +0000

Here’s a nice e-mail that was sent to us yesterday from one of our fairly new wholesale customers:

We got our tea this morning and just wanted to say Thank You for getting this order out so quickly and for all the help you have been in getting the Tea Room going! Also the new China greens are excellent!

Thank you, David. It’s great to see your progress and how well you’re doing with all our teas.

Behind the scenes at Silver Tips

Anupa — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:51:14 +0000

We’re installing a Point of Sale system tomorrow at the Tea Room. For anyone who has gone through a similar change, you know how harrowing this can be. For one thing, nothing quite works the first day. And then there are all the unintended consequences one can never foresee. So send good thoughts and prayers our way tomorrow because it will be a big change for us. We’re done with all types of cash registers – they no longer do the job for us. We’ve known this for a while but the known misery was better than the unknown one.

We’re also finalizing our Groupon deal which should run late May. We learned a few things last year so we will tweak the deal slightly and the Groupon people tell us that they have now doubled their subscriber base so we should expect a larger amount of Groupon sales this year. Prior to the Groupon deal of course is Mother’s Day – the busiest day of the year for us. Our 4 seatings are slowly filling up but there are still plenty of tables available. Mother’s Day is one of those late-awareness holidays. Suddenly everyone realizes on May 1 that they have made no plans and we get a rush of bookings. So here’s good warning – please reserve early.

Finally, we’re sampling new desserts which you will see over the coming weeks. We’ve already introduced some new fruit and nut tarts and next will be some excellent cheesecakes followed by a line of authentic Italian gelatos mid-May.

Enjoying Afternoon Tea

Anupa — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 12:38:58 +0000

Joy and Connie visited us yesterday from the Bronx. After enjoying their Afternoon Teas with sandwiches, scones and cake, they commented, “This should be illegal. We need a nap. You need a napping area”. We will take that under advisement, ladies! They ordered Ancient Forest Yunnan with their Afternoon Teas and left with 2 oz. of the tea and a yellow 2-cup teapot. A nice afternoon’s work, I would say.

Easter Hours

Anupa — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:23:43 +0000

April 6, Good Friday: Open 11 am to 4 pm.

April 7, Saturday: Open 11 am to 6 pm.

April 8, Easter Sunday: CLOSED.