Loose Leaf Notes

The Loggerhead was across the street from our cottage in Folly Beach, SC.

It just happened to be the same place that I and my family stayed at during our Folly Beach vacation in 2015, just across the street from the beach.

As the detective Angels, we did see a suspicious body on the beach, but our mission was a visit to the Charleston Tea Plantation, the only place in the country that grows American tea.

The tea looked like boxed forsythia hedges. We watched the plants being weeded by hand.

There were tastings and trolley cars, a gift shop full of teapots and a close-up look at a freshly picked all-natural harvest being processed.

Say Tea! The trolley driver really said ‘tea’ instead of ‘cheese’ when he snapped this picture with my camera.

He had some trivia questions during our tour, like where in the world do they drink the most tea per capita? I guessed either Ireland or England.

The answer was Ireland.

In Charleston, we didn’t want to tip our sarcastic buggy ride guide who I nicknamed Al Yankovitz, but we did want to tip the horse who pulled us around Charleston, SC’s historic downtown.

We became the Sisters of the Wide-brimmed Beach Hats after our purchases at the historic Charleston Market.

Speaking of tea, while in Charleston for a gourmet lunch, we popped into Bitty and Beaus, a coffee shop franchise run by people with disabilities.

There, we met and struck up a conversation with a woman from England who was surprised to learn that the Irish drink more tea than the English. She said she never orders tea while in the U.S., only coffee, because resturants in American rarely make a good cup of tea, which starts with boiling water poured over the bag or leaves. We agreed.

My friend Katherine, a fellow tea lover, is also  known as Moonflower.

Of all the foodie foods we ate, our last supper in the cottage might have been the most enjoyable.

Until next time!