Taking Kids to Tea, Seattle & Elsewhere

These questions were also sent to the TeaMail group, so some of you might see this twice.

Julie, from Seattle, emailed me asking about places to take her well-behaved nieces/nephews to tea. She'd found my Spots for Tea in Seattle web site and was hoping for suggestions. I was a bit embarrassed to admit that I really hadn't considered it before, but still gave her a few suggestions for places that had kids pricing on their menus or that offered tea parties for children. I'm not sure how helpful that was, though, and I'm hoping to develop more information to post to my web site.

I don't have children of my own but do know the joys of taking my own nieces and nephew to special places, and it would be fun to take them out for tea when they visit me (or I go visit them). I'm also realizing that when people visit Seattle, they often have family with them and want to find a tearoom that welcomes their kids.

Now I'm wondering how to find out if a a tea room is child-friendly, and I turn to all of you experts out there -- the tea-loving moms, dads, uncles, aunts, grandparents -- for some good advice. Where do you take children to tea? What does one need to consider when finding the right place? Are there tricks to finding out whether a tearoom will be friendly (or snooty) to you when you've got children along?

Also, a few questions for tearoom owners: Is there a place for children in an adult tearoom? Are there special considerations that sippers with kids need to be aware of? Do you have any tips for those who bring kids along for tea?

I'd also be interested to hear from some international readers, to learn about cultures/customs for kids and tea.

For those of you in the Seattle area (and I know there are several of you out there!): do you know of tearooms that are kid-friendly? I'll pass any suggestions on Julie, and I'll add the tearoom to my web site.


Please feel free to add a comment to this post, or to contact me via e-mail: cindy at wambeam.net