Taking time out for tea
Dorset Tea & Coffee
352 Washington St., Wellesley
Telephone: 781-239-8988
Cafe hours after Labor Day: Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Afternoon tea: Monday through Saturday, 2 to 5
Major credit cards accepted
Reservations recommended for more than 4 for tea
Not wheelchair-accessible
If you don't have a pied-a -terre in London, you can indulge your inner Anglophile closer to home with afternoon tea, served daily at Dorset Tea & Coffee in Wellesley Hills.
Good suburban tea offerings are scarce. Big-name teas like those served at the Ritz-Carlton and the Four Seasons in downtown Boston feature tiered silver trays of treats and subdued white-gloved attendants -- and require reservations weeks in advance.
But outside the city limits, teatime mostly involves a tea bag and paper cup at a chain coffeehouse, and maybe a plastic-wrapped madeleine cookie. Not exactly what Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford -- who is widely credited for popularizing the modern approach to teatime -- had in mind.
But the Dorset, which local sisters Sally and Sue Khudairi opened in May along busy Washington Street, puts on a tea that manages to be competent in all the right places, yet not fastidiously uptight.
The cafe also runs a brisk all-day sandwich, coffee, and pastry business, but afternoon tea is where Dorset really makes its mark. Its approach is pricey, with enough table service and elegance to make patrons feel pampered, but still airily casual, like the pleasant tearoom/cafes found in many European cities. On a recent visit, the customers appeared to have dressed for the occasion, most in business casual, while the young servers were in stylish black T- shirts with a Dorset logo.
Official teatime in the British Empire is late afternoon, but the rules here across the pond are a bit looser, and Dorset serves its afternoon tea from 2 to 5. (Purists would not consider this ``high" tea, which involves more food when supper is planned for 8 or 9 p.m.)
Dorset's four main tea services all involve variations on a theme -- tea sandwiches of egg salad, cucumber, and cream cheese, smoked salmon pate, and Italian ham with apricot chutney, served with a currant or citrus scone, clotted cream, and preserves, or lemon curd.
The heartiest tea service is the Duchess ($19.50), which also features a cup of soup with the finger sandwiches, scone, and accompaniments.
Scaled down but still filling is the signature Dorset ($16.50), comprising the sandwiches, scone, clotted cream, and preserves. The Dundee ($10.50 ), a nod to Queen Victoria's affection for Scottish culture, came with a scone, cream, and shortbread biscuits. The Devon ($7), named for the birthplace of cream tea, is the most basic selection, just a scone and clotted cream to go with your pot of tea.
The cafe also has a children's tea menu, and we saw a little girl, about 8 years old, enjoying the Darling ($6.50), which adds a finger sandwich of Nutella hazelnut spread to the mix, along with a cookie or biscuit, and cup of apple juice, hot chocolate, or herbal tea.
The Dorset's adult tea choices include a dozen blends from importer MEM Tea of Boston, with black teas like English and Irish breakfast, Darjeeling, and chai spice, an exotic tea served sweetened with milk. Caffeine-free herbal and green tea selections are also offered, including South African Rooibos, a ``red bush" herbal tea blended with orange and vanilla.
We particularly enjoyed a specialty black tea, the Wellesley 1881 Rose, an English breakfast blend infused with real rose blossoms that was created in honor of the town's recent 125th birthday.
Town permits don't allow cooking in the storefront shop, so the scones come from B&R Artisan Bread in Framingham, the new outpost of baker Michael Rhoads, formerly of Sel de la Terre in Boston.
The c lientele for afternoon tea is overwhelmingly female, so on one visit to Dorset I brought along my 64-year-old father, whose idea of teatime is an afternoon beer. A faithful morning coffee drinker, he hadn't had hot tea in years and was dubious he'd even like the loose-leaf stuff.
I was hoping the ritual would have a civilizing influence -- but he got us off to a questionable start by quizzing our server about the pretty crustless sandwiches. Where did all those crusts go, he asked, to feed birds? (Her polite answer: No, they go in the trash. We don't want a flock of seagulls dive-bombing the building.)
But after his hot pot of Earl Gray arrived, he settled in nicely, waiting several minutes, as instructed, for the brew to steep properly. The taste of ``real" tea knocked him for a loop -- in a good way. He happily relaxed for an hour, adding afterward, ``Now I can understand why entire civilizations prefer tea to coffee."
