Photograph by Paul Myers

Pat Ramirez, right, serves tea to customer Arlene Conn at Lisa's Tea Treasures in Los Gatos, which Ramirez has owned for nearly 10 years.

Victorian high tea alive at Lisa's Tea Treasures

By Suzanne Cristallo

Wine savants seeking a new challenge might try tea. It's a whole new area in which to acquire expertise and sensitize taste buds, according to Pat Ramirez, owner of Lisa's Tea Treasures in Los Gatos. "Tea-making is almost like wine making," she says with the assurance of one who understands both.

The English-style cottage on N. Santa Cruz Avenue where guests delicately sip piping hot brews from fine china and nibble dainty sandwiches suggests a step back in time. Victorian settees are intimately arranged, gifts of lace doilies, shawls, tea cozies and 14 brands of Lisa's tea are available for purchase, and high tea--the equivalent of lunch--is served by women tastefully attired in 19th century maids' uniforms.

The whole Victorian experience has been in town since 1993. "You're supposed to feel like you're in a home rather than a restaurant," says Ramirez, who, with husband, Bill, have celebrated the births of 10 grandchildren during the 30 years they have been residents of Los Gatos.

But the Los Gatos Lisa's Tea Treasures was "the first baby"--the first attempt by founder Lisa Strauss to franchise her 1985 creation based on what she had seen as a popular concept of tea rooms during her travels in Singapore. And it was Ramirez's first attempt at running her own business after 12 years as a human resources supervisor for a large hospital system.

While franchises were popular in the late 1980s, the young company couldn't support its offspring and soon cut them loose, eventually going bankrupt. Only the small and owner-run, tightly supervised shops like Ramirez's survived. (There's also one in the Pruneyard in Campbell).

In celebration of Valentine's Day, guests can enjoy the featured strawberry Darjeeling tea, often called the champagne of teas. It's a black tea base containing pieces of strawberry. The lunch menu offers a pot of the "Sweetheart Tea" along with a Devonshire cinnamon scone with cream and strawberry preserves; tomato orange bisque soup and chicken cilantro and pesto tea sandwiches, topped off with a valentine dessert--all for $17.95. The regular menu includes eight items: a sampler plate, two hot pie plates (broccoli and cheese and a Shepherd's beef pie) and three choices of salads. All lunches include a pot of tea with two scones and a dessert.

Children can enjoy peanut butter and jelly tea sandwiches, sausage roll-ups, fresh fruit, a mini cupcake and an animal-shaped petit four, plus watermelon-berry decaf tea for $13.95.

Before tea reaches the table, it goes through six processing steps involving a great deal of hand labor, according to Ramirez. Grown in India, China, Africa and Sri Lanka, which have the right climate, acidic soil and cheap labor, young leaves are picked from a camellia synthesis plant (the first picking is the best), laid out on a palate and dried in the sun. Black tea is crushed and allowed to ferment 12 to 24 hours before firing in an oven; green tea is not allowed to ferment and goes directly to the oven to dry. It has very little caffeine. The larger the leaf, the better the quality. Small crumbs and stems are of lesser quality and usually make up the contents of commercial tea bags.

"We have created the formulas for all of our teas," explains Ramirez. Those are secret, of course. At $3 per ounce, a 4-ounce package of Lisa's tea will make about 40 cups. A quarter pound of tea is equivalent to a pound of coffee in the amount of brew it yields.

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Lisa's Tea Treasures, 330 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos. Open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Call 408.305.8327 for more information.

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