| State finds a new cup of tea
BURLINGTON, Wash. (AP) -- Just behind the Sakuma Brothers Farms Market Stand, in a 5-acre field bordered by a strawberry patch, a decade-long project to bring locally grown tea to market has finally come to fruition.Earlier this summer, workers walked through the tightly packed rows of nondescript evergreen plants, named Camellia sinensis, and one-by-one they pinched off the plants leaves near the stem.Later, the leaves were heated, rolled and dried in the sun, with the resulting brittle flakes ready to be steeped in water and served as tea.Last month, after the Sakumas first sale of loose-leaf green and white teas, the family-owned farm became just the second commercial tea plantation in the continental United States, and the first on the West Coast. .
Lounge goes for Baroque
If you've got champagne tastes and a champagne budget, your champagne dreams will come true at new Baroque Luxe Lounge in north Scottsdale. Two of the Valley's most creative minds, Jimmy Carlin (Blue Wasabi) and Peter Kasperski (Cowboy Ciao, Sea Saw, Star Spangled Tavern), have produced a "romantic, London-style bar," where the glittering Scottsdale crowd can "see and be seen." The nibbling menu offers oysters Churchill (oysters baked with Sage Derby cheese, lardons and b�arnaise sauce, $15), lobster ravioli ($17) and steak tartare ($15). The cocktail menu is eye-catching. You won't see drinks like this elsewhere: the Clavo Madero ($100), made with 1972 Ledaig single-malt Scotch, 1912 Barbeito Madeira, white-truffle honey, essences of tobacco, Earl Grey tea and orange bitters, strained, served over ice with a honeycomb.
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