First things first.  As we wonder whether we are in for any more huge dumps of snow (the forecast is saying no at least this week), we are in the throws of preparing for our 4th Annual Valentine’s Day Victorian Tea.  Every year we have been sold out and we anticipate no less this year.  The recession has slowed B&B traffic down a little so far this winter, but our Garden Gate tearoom guests continue to arrive hungry and in a hurry, and leave  full, relaxed and rejuvenated. Conversations during tea time flow in between tasty morsels and sweets; laughter and giggles are overheard through whispered reinactments of past times together;  sometimes even a tear or two unwittingly escapes as friends connect deeply from the heart.

And so, as tea is good for all parts of you, including the heart, we extend our warmest invitation to join us here at the Garden Gate Tearoom for our special Valentine’s Day Victorian Tea to be held on Sunday, February 14th with your choice of a 2 pm or 6:30 pm reservation. All ladies will receive a beautiful rose as a gift from us!  Bring your special someone here  - we’d love to spoil you with ambiance, great food, and our excellent customer service in order to make this a Valentine’s Day to remember!

To make this event a truly memorable one if you visiting from out of town, think about extending your Valentine’s celebration by staying overnight in one of our lovely guest suites in the Haven B&B.  We are offering a special discount for that evening as the next day is a national holiday and you can sleep in!  Ask about our romantic extras that we can have waiting for you in your room such as truffles, bouquet of flowers, or a personalized gift basket for a  nominal extra charge.

Well, my teatime is past, and bedtime is imminent.  Have a TEAriffic New Year, and hope to see you soon.  Feel free to comment about your tea experiences, your visit to either this site or to the Garden Gate Tearoom.  We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Sweet tea dreams,

Sylvia

We have had an eventful August and beginning of September here at the Garden Gate Tearoom.  In August, we have had tea guests from all over Ontario visit us.  We also were blessed to serve our popular Victorian Royal Tea for 36 guests for a private birthday party.  Since our comfort zone is 20-30 it was tight but everyone loved it and we had lots of fun!  This past week we were honoured to host September’s Brock Networking Breakfast Meeting where we served a sampling of the B&B’s breakfast items and a delectable egg bake I pulled out of a Rise and Dine cookbook.

As we are always moving things around here and there, we have developed our retail corner into a more interactive space and have now included a Preserves Corner where all our home-made jams will be readily available for purchase right off the shelf.  Tea sales are slowly picking up as more of our local residents and  not-so-local tea guests are made aware of our huge selection of fine quality loose teas and herbal tisanes, including two great tonic tisanes made locally by Faunus Herbs just a few concessions away.  We are also now set up to ship small quantities of our guests’ favourite tea to anywhere in Canada via Canada Post.  There’s never a dull moment around here - perhaps that’s why I get tired some days…;0)

We look forward to seeing you here soon at the Garden Gate, and perhaps our little cottontail rabbit friend will still be around to greet you when you arrive!

Welcome friends - past, present and future! It has been a long and interesting journey from simple beginnings in 2006 opening with 3 rooms, a simple website, home-made brochures by “yours truly”, and a single home phone number - to a new Logo branding, call-forwarding to my business cell phone (I have entered into the modern world now), opening a 4th guest room, the Garden Gate Tearoom addition in 2008, a retail component this summer and now our new interactive website with a blog!

The tea venture has been a good decision for us and it has proven to be a real joy sharing the decadence and graces of “Afternoon Tea” with local residents and tourists young and old alike. It has allowed local day guests to be able to share in the same peaceful, home-away-from-home ambiance that our more long-distance overnight guests are privy to (and be just as well-fed too!) The Garden gate Tearoom has its own blog separate from this one and all things “tea” will be posted there.

Have fun checking out this new website of ours. We think our website designer is terrific and has done a great job of capturing the same “Haven” essence of the old site with the much better administrative functionality of this new one. Don’t forget to turn the music back on for those who liked it. I am aware that in the past it was very annoying for the musical background to keep starting over every time you went to a new page so we fixed that for you.

We REALLY want to hear your comments on what you think of our new site, especially if you have been used to seeing our old one. I look forward to reading your thoughts, ideas, comments, etc. I will fill you in on neat little tidbits, local happenings and stories whenever they come my way, so let us know if you want to be on our automatic email list when there is a new post. We’ll get you on board.

We invite you to post a comment here about anything tea, be it your experience with us during your visit you wish to share with others, or a comment about a tea you either recommend (or not), etc….We want to make the Garden Gate a true destination venue in Brock Township, North Durham and we want you to feel relaxed, pampered and valued whether you are here for one of our tea luncheons, or just stopping in to buy tea to enjoy at home.