Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Tea at the Brown Hotel

On Sunday, my friends K, A and I took a tea-trip to Louisville, KY. The trip was steeped in history and flowing with good conversation.

We started the day with a visit to the
Speed art museum. It was a great museum visit! My favorite part was viewing the English room. The original walls from an English manor are reassembled here. They're full of detailed mythical carvings. The original owner was a "Sergeant at Law" for Queen Elizabeth I (my favorite queen)!

After the museum tour, we headed over to the Brown Hotel, a grand hotel in the style of old opulence. The recent movie Elizabethtown used the ballroom from the Brown in one of its scenes.


The hotel used whole-leaf tea sachets, which I appreciate as a nice step above tea bags. It's an easy way for the hotel staff to avoid brewing in the kitchen and provide higher-quality tea. On the down side, it does leave you with the problem of what to do with the paper and tea sachets.
Our menu included:
Tarragon chicken salad with radish sprouts, smoked salmon and yogurt raita on pumpernickel and sun-dried tomato pesto with cucumber and eggplant spread.
We had Corinth raisin scones and, for dessert, a raspberry tartlet in vanilla pastry cream, a mocha chocolate ganache cup and a pistachio tartlet.

As we sat and sipped our tea, I could envision former guests like Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor and Gene Autry. They'd fit right in, and so did we! Thank you to my friends for this special day.

11 comments:

parTea lady said...

Sounds like a lovely day trip. Exploring a good museum is so enjoyable. Your tea at the Brown Hotel looked really good and what elegant surroundings.

Ethan Nicholas said...

How delectable! I have been dying to visit Louisville, so now I know where to take tea when I'm there! So glad you enjoyed!

massagematters said...

Great picture of you ladies!! sounds like a wonderful day!

kimberly shaw said...

Looks like you had an amazing day, what a gorgeous setting, what a spread!

Angela McRae said...

Opulent surroundings, tea with friends, yummy teatime foods ... my kind of day! (And thanks for sharing the movie info. Fun to know!)

sweetcakes said...

What a great day we had! Thanks for sharing your birthday with us!

Teresa's New Life said...

Thank you for sharing this special time with us & for sharing such wonderul pictures. You have such a way of describing things that make it so interesting.

Linda Jennings said...

I loved seeing your photos and hearing all about this fun day trip. The Brown Hotel has been on my list of places I want to go for a long time.

mep said...

My mouth is watering! What a wonderful experience to share with good friends.

Marilyn Miller said...

What a perfectly delightful tea. The food and location both look lovely. Sharing with friends is the very best.

Alex Zorach said...

How is Novus tea? I have not yet tried any of their teas...they are owned by Bigelow; I'd be curious to see if they really are a step up in quality, like they market themselves as.