Tea Time in Alberta: 55 Places to Discover Your Favourite Tea. Rev. ed.

Liz Dennett is a public service librarian in the Science and Technology
Library at the University of Alberta.

This guide to teahouses in Alberta is organized by region. Each tearoom is featured in a double-page spread. For a tearoom to qualify for inclusion, it had to serve people tea at the table, have a bit of what the author calls “atmosphere,” and serve home baking. Although some exceptions to these qualifiers were made, places where customers make their own tea using hot water out of a tap were excluded.

Each entry describes the types of tea served and the food, as well as any unique tearoom features and/or the history of the area. The guide’s tone is neither gushing nor critical. Banal fare such as Caesar salad and ham sandwiches are listed with the same faithfulness as gourmet cooking. And Mary Oakwell includes everything from mom-and-pop organizations that open irregularly to fancy hotel tea rooms to chain establishments such as Cargo and James and Steeps. Near the back of the book there is also a list of tea retailers in Alberta, an introduction to bubble tea, and a few pages about the history and lore of tea.

Tea Time in Alberta covers so many tearooms, it is unlikely that Albertans and would know about most of them, even if they are in their backyard. The book will delight tea enthusiasts in Alberta, as well as anyone simply looking for an interesting day trip.