Clipper Merchant Tea Room - Limerick, ME

As I mentioned more than a few times, I've been in travel mode lately. Over the summer we took the kids up for a long weekend to Santa's Village in New Hampshire's White Mountains and then to Wells, Maine. Mountains and ocean in one weekend. I love New England.

While we were traveling through to Wells I realized that we were just a few miles from a tea room I'd been wanting to check out: Clipper Merchant Tea Room in Limerick, Maine. We decided to swing by. On this first trip I just dropped in, met the owner, and got a quick tour. (We also tested out the bathroom when my two year old needed to go. That's her standing by the shop sign...)

The building is a lovely restored Victorian Gothic that the owners believe was built in 1860. (Although they have since received word that it might actually date back to the 1830s.) You will enter into the side entrance off the driveway and be immediately greeted by a staff member at the desk. There are some teas and a few other items for sale in this room. Behind this room is the tea room's kitchen and you are certain to be greeted with amazing scents. (The first day I popped in they were making roast pork and it smelled fantastic!)

As you walk through the tea room you will note that the internal structure has not been altered from when it was a private home. You can certainly identify each room's original purpose. The renovation has been done in a graceful and delicate way, preserving the beauty of this grand old structure. (There are photos at the bottom of this post.)
* The first room is the "Custom House Room" which is the main dining room. There is a large table that seats 8 - 10 with a few smaller tables. In all they can seat 20 in that room. With a large fireplace, chandelier, and built-in china cabinets you can certainly envision holiday dinners held in days gone by.
* Behind it is the "China Room.". The owners' daughter was adopted from China and they decorated this room in her honor, with items they collected on their trip to bring her home. This room was likely a sun room in early iterations of the house. There are 3 or 4 small tables in this room.
* The third room is sometimes called the "Thistle Room" and sometimes "The Library." It is decorated with Scottish items in honor of the owner's family, including her family tartan and photos of her grandparents. There are also floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with books that visitors can borrow during their tea room visit. This room seats 16.
* The fourth room is the "Hawthorne Room," paying homage to Nathaniel Hawthorne and to American history. It was designed as a slightly more "masculine" room, with heavier and darker furniture and tones than the other rooms, aiming to be as comfortable for men as for women. It reminded me of the feel of the hunting manors they show in British movies. There is a table near the window with one big leather chair that I would have liked to camp out in for the day. 15 can be seated in this room.

Now, as I mentioned, I did a quick stop in on the way to somewhere else. I knew that I had to go back and have a full tea experience. And I did. A couple of weeks later I drove the two hours up from my house just for tea. I think the owners thought this was fairly bizarre, but they were certainly welcoming.

Welcoming is the ideal word for this tea room. There is soft, relaxing music and it was just a warm, cozy feel throughout. I also wanted to note how many men I saw in this tea room. It was really a pleasant thing to note. There were couples and there was a family party with younger and older couples and friends. This is not a frilly, girls-only spot.

Now what you really want to know about is the tea. I know it.

I was served a lavender lemonade to start. It was a pink lemonade that was slightly sweet with a heavenly lavender perfume. Fantastic.

That lemonade put me in the lavender mood so I ordered a lavender earl grey tea. The tea menu is very extensive at Clipper Merchant. They have a great selection of teas and the staff seemed knowledgeable about the options. The tea was served in a teapot on a warmer with an antique tea cup.

I ordered the tea sandwich plate. Isn't it beautiful? There were four types on the plate along with a scattering of locally grown blueberries and a piece of watermelon and a piece of pineapple. (And Maine blueberries ARE better than any other blueberries on earth. There is no competition here. I promise you. They just plain are.)

The four sandwiches were - egg salad (some on white and some on wheat), a fruited cream cheese (strawberry perhaps) on white, chicken salad on croissant, and open face cucumber sandwiches with half of a grape tomato on top. All were very pleasant. There were no big surprises here, but everything was certainly fresh, moist, and flavorful.

I followed my sandwiches with a blueberry scone. There were also lemon ginger scones and cranberry scones on the menu. The scone was made with a mix of brown rice flour and almond flour, rather than wheat flour, giving a much lighter and more cake-y texture. It reminded me more of blueberry cake than a scone, but I am definitely not complaining. It was served with butter, Devon cream, blueberries, and THE MOST AMAZING lemon curd ever. I seriously wanted to eat the lemon curd with my spoon. OK. I did. I admit it. It was heavenly. Heather, the owner, told me that they make the lemon curd in house. As a matter of fact, they make EVERYTHING in house. These people even raise their own ducks so they will have fresh duck eggs to cook with.

A tiered tray is available for parties of two. It is $24.95 and includes sandwiches, scones, and desserts. (That is for the tray, not per person.) You can view the full menu here. They do offer plates for children as well as special vegetarian menus and diabetic menus if you call ahead. Reservations aren't required, but they are recommended.

The Clipper Merchant Tea Room is definitely a destination. It's not really "near" much. It's about an hour west of Portland. However, it is a lovely drive into a beautiful part of the state. And, now, I will finish the post with a few more photos. Here are some shots of the interior of the tea room.