Monthly Archives: January 2010

Afternoon Tea at Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam

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Afternoon Tea at The Amstel Hotel ©HighTea.com

I had spent the morning touring past priceless works of art at the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum and decided to walk to the Hotel Amstel for Afternoon Tea.  The distance was about 1.4 km or just under a mile, and even though it was a cool January day, it was clear, bright and just begging for a brisk afternoon walk.  Starting out from the Museumpleine , I headed east toward the Amstel Hotel.  Along the way, I began to think that I had gotten off my directions, so I stopped in an office building and asked the receptionist if I was on the right track.  She entered my information into her iPhone and quickly determined that I was one street off, but running parallel to the correct street, so I would still encounter the hotel, just from the other side.

Amstel Inter-Continental Hotel ©HighTea.com

As I came up to the Amstel River bridge, I couldn’t miss the grand façade of the Amstel Hotel, located just across the river on the opposite bank.   Dating from 1867, this is one of the premier hotels in Amsterdam. Previous guests have included Queen Elizabeth, Gustav Eiffel, Audrey Hepburn, The Rolling Stones, Elizabeth Hurley, and U2. Continue reading →

Afternoon Tea at Hotel Amigo, Brussels, Belgium

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Bar Amigo in Brussels, Belgium

The overnight flight from Chicago to Brussels, Belgium was uneventful, until shortly before landing when the captain announced that some cool winter mist and fog was restricting visibility to about 1,500 meters at the airport. Nevertheless, it was enough for a Boeing 767 to land safely, and I was soon off to my afternoon tea at the Hotel Amigo.

The heart of the city of Brussels is Grand Place (Grote Markt), and if you can’t be directly on the Grand Place itself, the next best thing is to be just off one of the corners – northwest in the case, where the Hotel Amigo is located.  This is one of the most desirable locations in Brussels –  within walking distance of most of the top sights, restaurants, and historical points of interest. Continue reading →

How To Brew That Perfect Cup of Tea

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We’ve all heard the conventional wisdom before:  to brew a pot of tea, throw in one teaspoon  for each cup and then add one “for the pot.” Others might say to use a level teaspoon for black tea, but use more (say 1.5 teaspoons) for green and white teas, because they’re more delicate than black.

Here’s the problem with that way of thinking: a teaspoon is a measure of “volume.”  Tea comes in so many shapes and sizes that measuring it by volume may not be the best approach.  Take Chinese gunpowder for example – this is a charred green tea that is tightly rolled into small pellets (that resemble musket shot). Chinese gunpowder is so densely packed that a teaspoon of it is going to weigh significantly more than a teaspoon of a large, full-leaf tea.  By using the teaspoon as your yardstick, inconsistent tea brewing is pretty much “baked in the cake.” Continue reading →