I apologize for the long delay in posting something new: it's been a busy couple of months in the rest of my life.
On Monday, along with +Stacey Rothrock Steinfeld , +Christine Dalessio and Jenny, we went to Terra at the Isabel Rose, a team room in the Montclair Public Library in Montclair, NJ. It's a very small space, with about six tables. It offers a lunch menu as well as an afternoon tea.
We did the afternoon full tea, which features a large pot of tea, an assortment of finger sandwiches, a scone with all of the usual fixings, and a selection of desserts and fruit. I was somewhat disappointed in the sandwiches -- they were well done but could have used a bit more flavoring. The cucumber sandwich, for example, would have benefited from some herbs or mint to combat the blandness. But the scones and desserts were spot on. If I go back, I think I'd try the standard lunch menu, which looked far more interesting.
The tea menu was large and diverse. I was unhappy that some of the odder selections I wanted to try were not in stock. But I was ultimately quite happy with the Buccaneer blend, featuring (coconut, chocolate bits, vanilla, rooibos, Nilgiri black). The flavors blended nicely, but they needed a teaspoon of honey to come together properly.
+Stacey Rothrock Steinfeld tried an herbal blend called Chaucer's Cup, which featured mango, rose hips and rooibos. The rooibos elements were too strong for me, reminding me too much of childhood cough medicine.
I also had an excellent coconut-infused black iced tea. The coconut elements came out most strongly in the aroma rather than in the flavor itself. In taste, it was a good, strong black with the fruity notes of coconut playing underneath.
I didn't get a chance to try their bubble tea, unfortunately.
Service was friendly, chatty but perilously slow. I had joined the other ladies on my lunch hour and it ended up as a nearly 3-hour absence from the office. Good tea service walks a fine line between rushing you and letting you chat to your heart's content. This was just slow - we weren't getting service quickly enough to make the decision whether to stay or go. As a result, I ended up not trying some additional tea flavors that I would have liked to sample.
All in all, I'd give Terra at Isabel Rose a solid B, with many nice features but room for improvement.
