Saturday nite is nearly over in the restaurant, and I have left the others to deal with the desserts and coffee that remain, and to do the reset of tables. We have the last cookschool in the current series tomorrow morning, so I've come back over to the house intent on heading to bed soon, becos we've had a big couple of days with various things happening and I'm starting to wilt around the edges.

Am sure Rick won't be too far behind me. But before the dogs get ushered out to their kennels, I thought I'd make mention here, of a place we found today that was just fascinating. I've been talking about wanting to go for awhile, having read about the enterprise in an earlier edition of "Life and Leisure", and just hadn't quite had the opportunity to head over to the Waikato.

But today, my husband decided to ride over to Morrinsville, as you do, and Courteney and I drove over some hours later, and rendevouzed with him there. She then went on to do a 3 hour training ride, after which she was due to join the Morrinsville Wheelers, for their weekly race, ( a mere extra 2 hours)  as you do!

While she was on her initial ride, Rick who'd got changed, and I, headed to the Camelia Cafe, part of the extraordinary Zealong, Oolong tea, developement that is happening at the Hamilton end of Gordonton Rd.

A truly spectacular concept - oolong tea, which is one of the worlds most precious, is been grown in conspicuous quantities and processed using age old methods, and then exported all over the world.

We have for years sold leaf tea, at the restaurant. Its just one of those things that I've always believed in - if we were going to sell tea, I wanted to make it good tea, and since the start I've used Tea Total, and stock a range of teas, that we serve in glass teapots. And we sell alot of tea.

Oolong, according to a customer of ours who was once a tea taster in Sri Lanka, is the rolls royce of teas - and having tried it for the first time today, I begin to understand what Colin was intimating.

They serve it beautifully at the cafe - you have special containers that hold infusers for the leaves - they are placed in the container, using a spoon that looked like it was made from bamboo,  and then boiling water from a teapot is added, and you are told to wait 1/2 minutes, before removing the leaves and drinking the tea. The teapot in the meanwhile, is placed on a warmer, where it maintains a boil, and you can use it to top up your tea leaves again and again.

We were told today, that you can get 6-8 cups out of the same leaves. I think I drank at least 8 cups becos I was curious to see how the flavour of the tea changed and developed, and it did, but imperceptibly. Normally teas get more tannicy the longer the leaves are left, but the flavour of this stayed fresh and vibrant. The waitress mentioned that the best pour is considered the 2nd to 6th cup - and I decided you would have to have a pretty developed palate to be able to judge to that degree.

I'm not a tea drinker - I like coffee. Although I do try and drink some green tea in the week, becos of its beneficial properties, but I tend to wax and wan on it.

This experience today was quite delightful - we had lunch as well, and the sushi platter that I choose just felt like a perfect match. They are developing the whole area, - the decking and seating outside, overlooking the expense of camelia plantings, was just lovely. An inspiration indeed,  for what we could  one day do out the back here, at Somerset maybe...

Needless to say, I very much want to include the tea in Somersets lineup. I was stung some years ago, when Colin told me I didn't have 'real' teas on my list. So we will serve this Zealong oolong, but I will make sure that we do it as close to properly as I can realistically achieve, and that will involve getting some of the special drinking cups to infuse and then strain the tea. So we've made contact and will follow up next week.

Oh! - and by the way - Courteney got an email late on Thurs nite informing her that she has been selected for the Worlds Road team to compete in Melbourne in 4 short weeks. We're talking the elite Worlds, the top of both the men and the women from all around the world, so for her to be named in a 6 person lineup is huge kudos in her first year of racing at Open level, and to say her parents are fair bursting with pride would be a little of an understatement. Think I should be checking my air points on the Amex...becos I think Rick will burst if he doesn't get to watch her actually race...