Great Expectations by Tomislav Podreka

Ever go to a great movie that sucked you in from the start, built you up through the middle ... and then just completely compromised the ending? What did you remember most about that movie? The ending, of course.

Unfortunately, the great work of all the cast and crew was completely undermined by a weak finish. The same applies to a restaurant team. All the work that is applied through the bulk of an evening can truly be lost by an insipid ending.

Tea in fine restaurants is usually at the end of a meal (although bad tea at any point during the meal can ruin the experience). Tea typically accompanies the dessert, and, just like the wine list, your consideration of a tea menu should not be separate and apart from your dessert menu.

Most specifically, the tea concerned here is loose-leaf tea, not tea bag tea. The reason, aside from whether the quality is better (a point that could be fairly debated) is simple public perception. Loose-leaf tea and the apparent effort that is applied when buying and brewing it is always considered better value and of higher quality by the public.

Fortunately, the advent of quality tea has steadily risen over the last five years, with a majority of the better restaurants leading the charge and upgrading to loose-leaf tea. Tea is no longer a stepsister to coffee, but has blossomed of its own accord into a swan. More and more, it is seen as a magnificent way to make a statement, and, with such obvious differences between all the varieties, it allows each person to be a bit of an expert, a mantle many restaurants have been happy to garner. Many such restaurants have educated their staffs to levels of knowledge sufficient to make the selection of a tea on par with the selection of a wine.

Restaurants such as Local, Jean-George, and Gotham Bar and Grill of New York, Ciudad, Xiamara and L’Espinasse in California, and countless more between the coasts, have taken to the importance of a broad selection of teas and accouterments, taking advantage of or incorporating such things as tea menus, tea trays and rolling carts. These instruments have showcased the restaurants’ selection and added a little spark to the service.

The rapid public awareness of tea, primarily driven by the health benefits, has created a willing audience of consumers who are ecstatic that it’s both good for you and has a bona fide pedigree of connoisseurship.

The aggressive public showcasing by the aforementioned restaurants and their subsequent presence in the media have accelerated this awareness. This has resulted in a greater acceptance of tea in the retail world, in addition to stores that are actively researching and seeking out quality teas in the marketplace.

As a retailer, this sort of interest and intrigue will only bode great things over time. It creates a level of consumer education that will allow a retailer to expand, if nothing else, the quality of her tea line. And as more people become aware of the relatively inexpensive cost of tea per cup, the acceptance becomes greater, allowing retailers to sell more quality tea. That translates to higher profits per pound.

There are many reasons that restaurants are embracing loose-leaf tea. At the most basic is cost. For example, if you buy a box of 20 "gourmet" tea bags at $3 a box, you have a cost of 15 cents per serving. While a good loose-leaf tea may cost an average of $10 per pound, with an approximate yield of 200 cups, you have a cost of five cents per serving. In fact, you could spend as much as $30 per pound before you would match the cost of the tea bag.

With these sorts of economics driving your purchasing, a restaurateur can truly look into some marvelous teas. The variety available to a restaurateur suddenly becomes vast. It becomes almost the field of the food professional, such as the chef or even the patissier, who has a vested interest in seeing that his desserts are well complemented.

Unlike a wine list, a tea list need not be vast or complicated. When a restaurant considers a list of tea, it should consider only three or four categories—black teas, green teas, and fruit and herbal tisanes as the first three, and oolong as the fourth. Oolong, while a favorite of many tea connoisseurs, need not be a must for the primary list. It can be added in due time.

When viewed like this, a tea list is reduced to its essential categories and doesn’t have to appear as a list of independent varieties. This approach makes education simple and far less formidable. Black tea is black tea. Earl Grey is black tea also, but it’s flavored with bergamot. A tisane is not a tea, but an herb, and it has no caffeine. You can develop simple abbreviated phrases that allow the staff to become comfortable with the tea and quickly and efficiently explain a tea menu.

Common sense should be the first resource used when selecting a tea. Think about the relative needs of the restaurant, and, to some degree, the expectations of the clientele. Seven is a good number to aspire to—it allows for good distribution over the categories and is not so long that it causes confusion and flat spots in the list. It is always possible to increase your list as time goes on—a better idea than overdoing the selection and sitting on product.

Consider these selection suggestions for starting a high-quality foodservice tea program:

• Black tea should comprise a good standard, such as a Ceylon, Keemun, Darjeeling, or Yunnan, that will fulfill your knowledgeable consumers while also happily satiating those who drink "regular," "orange pekoe" or "breakfast" teas—categories that customers rarely understand but request by rote. Earl Grey, a flavored black tea, will most likely be a choice, and then a third black tea, flavored or unflavored, can also be considered.

• Oolong is recommended but not necessary. A good standard that is a known quantity in the tea-drinking community and that also works well with many flavor profiles is a Ti Kuan Yin.

• You should choose a solid green tea that has a pleasant sweetness and easily complements a range of entrees and desserts, such as a Dragon’s Well or even a Houjicha, with its pronounced nuttiness. A nice choice for a flavored green tea is green tea with mint. This choice quite often allows two favorites to be covered, allowing for a greater selection in the tisane list.

• The tisane list should contain an herbal and a fruit tisane. Verbena makes a very accommodating infusion and introduces a citrus note for those who want a "lemon" tea. In addition, a simple fruit infusion often supported by hibiscus or rosehips deals with both sweet and tart notes.

This simple methodology allows for a good cross section without a confusion of varieties, and both the waitstaff and the customer can more effectively recommend and choose teas.

Equipment or accouterments is usually the next issue. What is required to serve a good pot of tea? Typically a restaurant already has hot water. A water filter would be nice, not just for the benefit of the tea, but because filtered water will improve the taste of anything that requires water, such as coffee, for instance. And hopefully there are already teapots available, even if the prior service was tea bags. The aesthetic value of a spent tea bag balanced on the saucer of the cup is not altogether desirable.

At the risk of sounding overly simplistic, making a pot of tea consists of putting tea in water, waiting and pouring. It really goes against the nature of tea to overcomplicate, and, quite honestly, there are no other steps involved. Certain teas are sensitive to certain temperatures, and when choosing your selection you should keep this in mind. It’s more important to do so with black tea, as most commercial hot water heating units do not boil water. Ask your vendor. This is what a vendor is for—to simplify and guide your decisions.

The advances in tea service over the last five years have been enormous. It has been accelerated to some degree by the resurgence of the dessert, as restaurants understand more that it is necessary to keep the patron satisfied through the end of the meal. Restaurants don’t want to return to a time when one would leave a restaurant to have dessert, and, subsequently, tea or coffee elsewhere. The numbers add up.

Now the excitement is palpable, from restaurants that are writing whimsical or formal tea descriptions on allocated menu space, to others that are carrying the tea tray to the patron while relishing something spectacular. Tea is becoming more of a focal point in the theatre of food, as restaurants are beginning to appreciate the glory of a fabulous finish or a magnificent mid-meal accompaniment. Tea is consistently an important consideration in every restaurant’s lineup of stars.