Tea was a popular Christmas gift this year. There were several blends and brightly coloured canisters and travel cups exchanged as gifts in my extended family. And the tea shops and chains that have grown across Canada over the last five years were doing a very brisk business on Boxing day.
But a woman who was a little ahead of the curve in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, got a major Christmas gift in December, when she found the tea-room she opened 10 years ago, listed with some of the venerable grande dames of tea emporia in Canada.
Cindy Cousineau, the woman behind Grandma’s Tea Room, in Winsloe, just oustide Charlottetown, was thrilled to discover she was on a list of seven of the “Best Canadian tea rooms” in the country.
Chatelaine Magazine, compiled the list which included the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, which began the afternoon tradition in 1908, and the stately Chateau Laurier in Ottawa. Grandma’s Tea was the only listing from Atlantic Canada.
“I wasn’t excited. I was ecstatic,” Cindy Cousineau said, in an interview with the CBC.
“I’m a spot on the top of that little pin and those places are amazing. They are. They’re dream places. It’s a really nice mention. It’s a beautiful mention.”
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