Vintage Tea Leaf

The Vintage Tea Leaf in Long Beach goes all out for Valentine's Day. Festivities include a candlelight tea dinner, a Victorian friendship Valentine's tea with lyrical musical entertainment and a Valentine's afternoon tea menu. This massive tearoom holds dozens of shabby-chic overstuffed chairs to sink into. Victorian bric-a-brac is everywhere and there is intimate seating on a quirky mezzanine.

A long menu offers 11 tea service combinations as well as luncheon and a la carte items. Many are wonderfully original: scone pudding with lemon curd and whipped cream, sandwiches on herb-seasoned scones with fillings such as chicken and homemade jam or soufflé-like creamy spinach.

The finger sandwich list includes smoked salmon-ricotta mousse, artichoke and Parmesan on pumpernickel and tuna-currant salad with champagne-pepper jelly.

Tea service is fanatically proper. The house serves only whole-leaf teas brewed in warmed cozy-covered pots and poured into bone china cups that patrons select from the house teacup collection.

The skillful proprietary blends, numbering more than a dozen, are a vast improvement over anything obtained off a shelf. They include Friendship Blend (teas from three countries) and Tango-Spice Blend, with orange peel, rose petals and spices.