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Owner Kim Arney has worked for 10 years to fill a niche for the Roanoke Valley. Her move to a new building in Salem is just the right location to continue her pattern of expansions.
John Park
When considering all the stuffy traditions we Americans wriggled our way free from when declaring our independence from British rule, there is one tradition I loathe the death of: afternoon tea. In fact, that fated night in Boston was probably the catalyst to ending America’s tea-totaling habits. Sometimes I wish our rebel forefathers could have found something else to dump into the ocean rather than tea.
Fortunately, for Roanokers, all is not lost. For over 10 years now, Kim Arney has been reviving the tradition of tea through the White Oak Tea Tavern.
Arney, a long-time resident of Botetourt County, began her career doing clerical work for Community Hospital in Roanoke. After 16 years, she left to work closer to home in Fincastle for the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office. Arney says at this point in her career she was tired. She needed a reprieve. Providentially, she was offered the opportunity to cater several events for different friends. Her name spread. For four years she ran her own catering business.
“I worked hard,” recalls Arney, her petite frame squared and leaned in. “It was very physical and I was going all over.”
While Arney was working at catering and wondering how long she could maintain the pace, a friend from church was creating White Oak Tea Tavern. The friend owned it just over a year before asking Arney if she would be interested in taking it over.
“We say, she gave birth to it, and I adopted it,” laughs Arney of the easy decision to purchase the White Oak Tea Company and make it her own.
In her decade of ownership, Arney has changed everything from the front gift shop, to the recipes on the lunch menu, to the teas themselves. She says when she expanded the tavern’s restaurant side, business grew. So much so, that White Oak Tea Tavern overwhelmed its location: the old Cloyd House built in the late 1700s. Something had to give as business was beginning to suffer. Yet, Arney wasn’t looking to expand, either. “I have grandchildren…I was praying for God to send Starbucks to come and buy me out.” Arney smirks at her admission.
God did not send Starbucks. Instead, he sent the Salem Historical Society. The Society needed just the right business tenant to occupy the Preston House—Salem’s oldest home—and Arney needed just the right location for the Tea Tavern to thrive. Turns out White Oak Tea Tavern is expanding after all.
White Oak Tea Tavern is a destination dining experience. Arney believes her “trade secrets”—menu items and ingredients that cannot be found elsewhere—are a primary reason for its popularity. “I’m not going to sell anything here that you can get anywhere else. Everything here is unique.”
The Tea Tavern’s menu is small. Arney offers two different chicken salads—Baked Spinach and Artichoke, and Chilled Cranberry-Almondine. Both are served with fresh-baked bread and a choice of honey or balsamic-vinaigrette for dipping. The warm creamy Spinach-Artichoke (served inside a bread bowl) is a perfect comfort on chilly days, while the Cranberry-Almondine reminds me of a springtime picnicking. As for the dipping-sauces, I have rarely (if ever) tasted a honey more pure or a balsamic-vinaigrette more balanced.
Arney also offers freshly baked bagel sandwiches with a choice of deli meat, cheese and in-house made schmears (a word that—besides being fun to say—finds its origins in Yiddish and means “spread”). The bagels remind me of my own homemade attempts: lumpy and uneven, lending themselves to skepticism; that is, until taking that first bite. Then chewy, soft wheat overwhelms the senses and the doubts. These bagels are delicious, lumps and all.
The teas (a Virginia’s Finest product), are the essence of White Oak Tea Tavern, and one of Arney’s primary joys. She is incredibly choosy about her ingredient sources—there are only two distributors she trusts. Her tea blends are original and unexpected with fun names like Chocolate Covered Strawberry and Cherry Rose Festival.
I indulge in Arney’s teas almost every day. I currently have six varieties at home. I drink Vanilla Chai during the occasional afternoon downtime. I enjoy Hot Buttered Rum or Maple Blackberry on those winter nights my husband builds a fire. Ginger Root and Calming Lavender have both been immensely helpful this year walking through the college process with my oldest child. And, right now as I write, I’m sipping a cup of Passion Fruit.
Once Arney gets White Oak Tea Tavern settled in its new Salem home (increasing her seating capacity of 20 to 70), she has a few ideas to implement. She wants to add soups to the menu, a unique garden salad and savory scones to complement the dessert scones they already offer. On the tea side, Arney plans to increase her wholesale marketing of White Oak teas, as well as improve and expand her monthly tea club.
Expansion doesn’t necessarily mean change, however. Arney says while she’s hoping to go into Salem with a boom, she is steadfast in keeping White Oak Tea Tavern the same as its always been: original, historic and steeped in tea.
White Oak Tea Tavern
Monday - Saturday 10:30 a.m. - 4 p.m.
(Reservations recommended)
(540) 992-6901 | whiteoakteas.com
**Stay tuned for White Oak’s moving date to its new Salem location.
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