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They’re as handsome as ever in slacks and vest, a purple tie lying down their chest. They’ve pulled their dark hair back into its customary ponytail. Gloss shines on their lips, and I nearly bend down to taste which flavor they’ve selected today before I remember the employee who escorted me down here.
“Please take a seat,” she says. “Your server will be with you in a moment.”
Avery all but drags me to one of the tables. There’s nothing on it right now, but after only a few minutes a man dressed like a waiter comes out and sets several palm-sized clear glasses on it. Each one contains a different liquid,from one like pale spun gold to amber to a rosy brown. The aroma strikes me immediately, tender jasmine that adds the faintest floral perfume to the air.
“As you requested,” the waiter says, “this is a selection of our jasmine teas for you to enjoy today. The jasmine mandarin is a white tea base that contains fragile leaves picked at dawn to perfectly perfume the tea, while the jasmine chung feng is a green tea base with a delicate jasmine scent. The bright yellow tea is our bohemian jasmine blend with jasmine and vanilla. You might also try the jasmine white and the jasmine mist, both white teas. Please enjoy.”
The waiter bows a little and backs away, leaving Avery and I alone with our flight of tea.
“All this for tea,” I say.
“Tea is very important,” Avery says.
“So I see. You dressed up.”
“Well, I can’t give you the true Boyfriend Café experience otherwise, now can I?”
They’ve been threatening to show me their Boyfriend Café for years now, and I’ve always laughed it off. It seems Avery wasn’t joking, however. They choose a tea and take a sip, then pass a pale brew to me. I sip tentatively, only to discover that it’s perfectly brewed. Just the right temperature. Light and sweet but not too sweet. And the scent of jasmine that hit my nose as I tipped the cup back added a whole extra dimension of flavor.
“This is incredible,” I say.
Avery beams. “I know. It’s supposed to be the best. I guess I see why.”
“It must be expensive though.” Everything in London is expensive, and Avery’s still in school.
They shrug. “It is, but it’s okay. We can treat ourselves one time. I promise.”
“We’re going to have instant noodles to eat for the rest of the month.”
“It’s worth it for this. Trust me. Try this one.”
They pass me another tea, and I sip it. Somehow, it’s completely different from the first, despite the white tea and jasmine being exactly the same. The difference is so subtle I can feel it more than I can name it.
“You’re going to ruin all normal tea for me forever,” I say. “This is like having some of that Swiss chocolate and then going home to your parents’ place around the holidays and being handed a Hershey’s bar.”
Avery laughs. “They think we’re such snobs for that.”
“It’s not our fault. They’d understand if they tried it. Didn’t you send them those chocolates we got for them?”
“I did,” Avery says. “My mother insists there’s no difference. I think my dad is coming around though.”
We try more of the teas and chat about nothing and by the end I think I understand the whole Boyfriend Café thing. Avery always described the café as a place for students to relax for a while, to forget about their classesand their roommates and their petty college drama and kick back. By the time we’re through the flight of jasmine teas, I understand.
The waiter re-emerges like he was watching us drink and anticipating the exact moment when we’d finish. He takes away the empty cups, but after only a couple minutes, he reappears. I assume he’s about to ask us very, very politely and Britishly to get the hell out, but he’s wheeling a cart toward us. He stops it before our table, and places two clean glasses before us. Into these, he sets metal steepers, each with a heart shaped wad of tea inside.
“For your final tea,” he says, “we offer the sweetheart tea, a green tea bud hand-shaped into the form of a heart.”
The last item on his tray is a steaming hot kettle. As he pours the water inside it into our cups, the little tea buds unfurl, destroying the heart shape but opening up into their full bloom. After two minutes (which the waiter apparently counts out in his head), he removes the steepers, entreats us to enjoy our tea, and wheels the whole contraption away.
“Did you know about this part?” I say.
“I might have,” Avery admits, smiling around the rim of their cup.
It had to cost extra on top of what is surely already an exorbitant tea experience, but I’m not about to complain. It was beautiful, and it tastes every bit as good as it looks.This time around, I’ll absorb the hit to our finances and keep my mouth shut.
Besides, it clearly makes Avery happy. We’ve shared a lot of adventures in the four years since we met, but Avery has always seemed sad that I didn’t experience their café back at C U of M. They still see many of the folks who worked at the café. Gabriel, their brother, and Trent are around for every holiday, of course. But I’ve also come to know Rhett and Albert and Mal, even the newer guys, the ones who were there when Avery was in charge, Julian, Cameron, Henry and manager Mia. They’re quite a crew, especially with all their partners and friends in tow. Albert’s annual New Year’s party in Brooklyn is starting to burst the seams on his and David’s home. So it’s genuinely nice to experience an approximation of what they all built together while they were at Montridge, that silly café that grew to become so much more as the people behind it poured their love and care into every cup of tea they served.
“Thank you for doing this,” I say. “I wish I could have experienced the real thing.”
