COVINGTON, La. — If you are looking for high tea in the New Orleans area, the English Tea Room in Covington is the place to go.
"We get people from England in here at least once or twice a week," owner Tim Lantrip said. "Name a country. A lot of them are coming to New Orleans and then they Google tea and find us."
Tim and Jan Lantrip just celebrated their 18th year in business. Tim's grandparents were from England, and despite moving to Texas the afternoon tradition continued.
"When I was little, I lived next door to my grandmother. She would babysit me a lot. My great-grandmother lived with her, and they'd have tea every afternoon," Tim said. "So when I was little, I'd sit down, they'd give me mostly milk and a little bit of tea. And just grew up with that."
The couple has made many trips to England to make sure their tea room is authentic. When they first opened up, it was just one room. Now, they're a full-fledged restaurant that focuses on tea.
"We started with 10 teas. It's been an evolution. Now we have 220 or 230 teas," Tim said. "We've just grown and it's been a learning process as we go."
The English Tea Room has regular customers as well as those who come for special occasions. Tea, in general, has become more popular over the years.
"It's probably grown 10 or 15% a year," Tim said. "20 years ago, if you went into a grocery store they probably had Lipton tea. That's about it. But now they'll have whole sections of tea. That's been an evolution and growth of tea. We've been a part of that here locally. It's been good."
When you think of Southeast Louisiana, tea probably does not come to mind. But it turns out that the English Tea Room fits in historically in Covington.
"The first 50 years were very heavily settled by people of England," Tim said. "We have Rutland Street out here. Pretty sure that was named after Lord Rutland. There's a Rutland County in England and Rutland Estate. The oldest existing building in Covington is an Episcopal Church built for all the English who lived here. We weren't part of the Louisiana Purchase. We're on the other side of the river that was all under English control. There's a seal from King George at the Covington Courthouse."
What began as a small operation has grown into a booming business with customers worldwide.
"We're too dumb to know that tea wouldn't work out. And that's kind of how it worked out," Tim said.
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WWL-TV reporter Leslie Spoon can be reached at lspoon@wwltv.com;