Where: Hendersonville, North Carolina Style: Charming cafe Tea Selection: 14 loose leaf teas Teatimes: Tuesday to Saturday 11:30-1:30 (last seating), and Special Tea Events Reservations: 24-hour notice for afternoon tea; walk-ins welcome for cream tea (Tu-Sat, 10-3) Contact: 828-845-4242 Cost: $25 Afternoon Tea; Cream Tea $7.95 Destination Tea Tip: This new teahouse is very popular, so book your reservations well in advance.
Destination Tea: The Book & Bee Cafe & Tea — newly opened this year, just 30 minutes south of Asheville — was the perfect teahouse to pair with our book club’s visit to the Biltmore. We set out to tour “The Last Castle” after reading this book by Denise Kiernan, and how à propos to kick off our trip by meeting fellow bibliophiles Lesley Shipley and Victoria Cummins, the mother-daughter owners of The Book & Bee. Throughout the teahouse, you’ll find nods to the ladies’ favorite tales and love of British culture, from the book spines front steps to the themed tea rooms, and teas given literary names. A Harry Potter fan in our group even spied a Marauder’s Map teapot. Lunch is also served here, where most everything is made from scratch, and we appreciate that seasonal ingredients are featured. The Book & Bee afternoon tea experience is so lovely from start to finish (as well as extremely affordable, with service that is on point) that the afternoon tea newbies in our group became instant fans of the tradition. Reviewing the weekend, one in our group even comments, “the afternoon tea was the highlight of our trip.”
Just making a quick call, “Darling, you’ve just got to see this teahouse.”
Loving the art installment in the foyer of The Book & Bee
In Tudor style, The Stratford Room — named for Shakespeare’s hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon — has darkly stained exposed beams and a stone fireplace.
The very feminine Garden Room, with elegant light fixtures
You might think you have shrunk like Alice when dining in the Garden Room, papered with huge blooms.
Again we spy the creativity of our hostesses: a handmade teacup and saucer wreath above the mantle
Victoria explains her love of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings, which inspired The Eagle & Child room, a reference to the famous 17th-century English pub where Tolkien’s writer’s group met. We love the faux copper ceiling to give this room character and warmth.
And here we are in the Jubilee Room, a celebration of Queen Elizabeth II
Want to help me identify this style of antique chair? My first time seeing chair back with a shelf!
The ladies study their tea choices
A display of British memorabilia and teaware to celebrate the home of afternoon tea
Wait, what’s this?
Seems even the mice are British in the Jubilee room
Tea Service
So many gorgeous teacups in this teahouse! We also love our copper demitasse spoons.
A very royal pedestal teacup, sits atop a decoupaged table of clippings and book excerpts
Foreshadowing the beautiful Biltmore gardens we would visit the next day
Each guest is offered a large 6-cup pot of tea, so we agree on a variety of selections because part of the fun is trying each other’s teas
Such a pretty pot! Some of the table favorites are The Poppins (vanilla black with caramel) and The Little Women (apple cinnamon black tea), but overall everyone is very happy with their choices.
Greetings, milady – color-coordinated from teacup to fascinator
Scones & Spreads, Savories and Sweets
Michelle is the perfect server, taking excellent care to make sure we have everything we need, but also leaving us plenty of time to chat.
Hello lovely hostesses, Victoria and mom Lesley who pops out of the kitchen to present the tea trays
Each lady has her own 3-tiered tray, creating lots of smiles.
An afternoon tea forest, the best kind
Afternoon teatime = the best time
The plentiful and delicious savories include: egg salad on marble rye, mini croissant with chicken salad, spinach and feta pinwheel, heart-shaped pineapple sandwich, cucumber with dill, and apple and cinnamon canapé.
The apple pie scone is wonderfully soft and aromatic, served with cream. It is accompanied by a smoked salmon dill crepe and a strawberry piped with cheesecake filling.
The teahouse brings in the dessert course: lemon bar, macaron, chocolate layer cake, baklava (it’s a bird’s nest!) and pumpkin truffle.
Teas and gifts are available in the front of the teahouse. Locally made molded soaps remind me of the ’50s, and I buy a rose-scented, jade colored one for the lovely lady who organized our trip. Coincidentally we were talking about this very thing on the drive up: wrapping a book with only a summary written on it for an adventurous book exchange.
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