Looking for a good tea? There is one to buy mail order from the tea-blending expert, Henry F. Semke, which is a full-bodied, brisk China congou, selling at ＄3.50 a pound, including postage. The tea brews a deep amber. It has a certain sting in its flavor but a softness in the mouth, on the flowery side in its fragrance. It's a tea for breakfast as well as for the tea table.
Henry F. Semke and his dad were in the warehouse business specializing in tea. When the building was sold, there was no place to move to so the father retired. Son Henry took his business home to the front parlor in his Cape Cod farmhouse at 236 Atlantic Avenue, Oceanside, New York. There he starte a mail-order business featuring poun shipments of the finest China congou.
Orders are sent out within twenty-four hours of receipt. Each shipment is followed by a personal letter. If anyone isn't happy with his tea, Mr. Semke offers to advise him on a choice. Semke knows tea as his father before him knew it for fifty years. During the war the Government called upon young Semke to make trips to various ports to supervise the discharge and storage of the tea coming from India and Ceylon. Semke says he eats, sleeps, and dreams tea. He drinks it too, a pound lasts him and his wife not more than three weeks.
If it's a gift you have in mind, the tea can be ordered in a Mexican, hand-blown, covered glass jar, about eight inches high, fluted and swirled, the color dark amethyst. The two-in-one gift is priced at ＄5.50, including postage. It travels gift-wrapped.
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