The Whistling Tea Kettle, Ballston Spa, NY

I visited this tea room over the weekend of March 21-23, 2014, and was so impressed I had to write a review of it. The store in Ballston Spa — a pretty, small, upstate NY village that retains some of the wealth of the gilded era and earlier when “taking the waters” brought well-heeled, big-walleted folks from around the world to this part of the state — is both a cafe and a tea seller. We ate at the cafe, which is nicely furnished with upholstered curved banquettes that allow you to have a normal-volume conversation at your table even if the place is totally full. The tea special of $18 gets you a three-tier meal, with a sandwich/quiche/crepe/meal-sized salad on top, a soup or side salad on the middle plate, and a scone or slice of cake on the bottom plate, plus a two-cup pot of tea perfectly brewed when it arrives at your table. All the food was delicious and the meal was a great value for $18. The tea menu was pretty much anything you could wish for — serious black tea (East Frisian, Pu-Erh, single-estate Darjeelings, etc.), green tea (including matcha), white tea, and house-flavored/blended black teas, chai, and tisanes. Retail counters at the front and back of the cafe sell the bulk tea in amounts ranging from a generous 4-cup sample to 16 ounces. This is a wellness-oriented operation, and thinks carefully about the sources, purity, and beneficial effects of their teas — but don’t worry, you won’t feel like you’re at the herbalist getting a medical treatment! This is a fun place, with friendly cool staff (one waitress had a tattoo on her inner forearm of the outline of New York State, with a small irregular circle inside indicating the borders of Albany County!). The front of the cafe has a “sniffing bar” with glass jars containing every tea they sell, and nifty teaware in glass, cast iron, ceramic, and plastic. I highly recommend this place if you’re within an hour’s drive.