The fires are out, and we are back!

This has been an eventful year, to say the least. On Labor Day weekend it became even more eventful when what is now alternately known as the Riley Road wildfire, the tri-county fire, or the Magnolia wildfire broke out. Whatever you choose to call it, it was bad and it was frightening, and it burned thousands of acres in three counties: Montgomery, Grimes, and our county, Waller. We had to evacuate, and spent several days on pins and needles wondering if our little sanctuary in the woods would survive.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of the firefighting crews (98% of whom were volunteers in our area!), we were able to return to our home this week. And we are delighted to announce that we will be back in the kitchen as usual this weekend, Saturday September 17 and Sunday September 18. We hope you'll stop by to see us, and share some of your own wildfire stories.

And if you want to help out with wildfire relief and recovery efforts, no matter where you are in Texas, here's a good place to start looking for information and resources.

At the very least, pray for rain!

We hope to see you this weekend, rain or shine.

PS ~ In case you didn't see it in our previous post, here is our current menu. Click on the pic to enlarge.

What's on the menu at Texas SpecialTea Shoppe?

Once again we apologize for being away from our blog for so long. It occurred to us that we hadn't yet published our menu, so here it is. (Click on the image for the enlarged view.) Prices and items are subject to change without notice, and of course we're always experimenting, so be sure to ask about our "off-menu specialties." We hope to see you soon.
PS ~ We are taking the weekend of July 30-31, 2011 off. Texas SpecialTea Shoppe will be closed that weekend. But we'll be back in our kitchen the following weekend, August 6-7. So come on out and see us then!

Wer'e back in the kitchen (at least on weekends!)

As promised in our previous post, we opened again on Saturday, February 12. For the time being, we will only be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. We will be sure to let you know when that changes.

In any case, we're still serving up the same delicious home-cooked fare -- light breakfasts and lunches, pastries, and (of course!) tea. For more information about who we are and what we do, please visit our web site at TexasSpecialTea.com.

We hope you will join us soon at our teahouse in the woods.

On hiatus again, but we'll be back February 12

First of all, a belated Happy New Year to all of our loyal friends and customers! (Or Happy Chinese New Year in advance; this year the latter begins on February 3, and it will be the Year of the Rabbit.)

It's been a while since we tended to this blog, but we're still here. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, after which we celebrated our eldest daughter's college graduation, and then we re-opened as scheduled on December 8. A couple of weeks later, we closed once again for the Christmas holidays. We had a delightful holiday and hope you did too.

Now, if you've driven out to our neck of the woods, you will probably notice that there's still a "Closed" sign on our little red tea house. But don't worry. We are simply on hiatus to take care of other matters, and plan to re-open again on Saturday, February 12, 2011. We hope to see you then. We'll be ready to welcome you with smiles, hugs, and great home cooking.
~Joan, Gil, and the girls

Happy Thanksgiving...and we'll be back soon!

In the slightly over two months since this blog opened for business, we have, we confess, been too busy to blog! We've been quite preoccupied at the Tea Shoppe, serving old friends and meeting new ones, trying out new recipes, and just generally enjoying life here in the woods. We do intend to get more into the rhythm of blogging and Facebooking and tweeting in the months to come. So we hope you'll bear with us.

Meanwhile, we are delighted to announce our daughter Katey's college graduation. To celebrate that graduation – and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday – we will be closed from Monday, November 22 through Tuesday, December 7, 2010. We will re-open on Wednesday, December 8.

We hope you have a safe and happy holiday, and that you find plenty to be thankful for in your life, as we have in ours. And we hope to see you soon at the Tea Shoppe!

For more information about our Tea Shoppe visit our web site.

Welcome to Texas Specialtea Shoppe!

Hi there! We're Gil and Joan Douglas, proprietors of the Texas Specialtea Shoppe in northeast Waller County, Texas. We also own the Waller Holler Cottage Bed & Breakfast, which is just a stone's throw from our tea shop.

This being our first post, we won't be long-winded. Through this blog we hope to keep you updated on the happenings around Texas Specialtea and Waller Holler. We plan to share news, photos, seasonal menus, and even a recipe or two, as well as, no doubt, some of our random thoughts. (And don't be surprised if one of our daughters occasionally pops up here with an essay or some other creative offering.) Who knows how this blog may grow? (In fact, we hope you'll help us grow it!)

For now, you can visit our web site to find out more about some of the goodies we offer at our little haven in the woods. You can also learn part of the story behind Texas Specialtea. We'll have more about all of that on the main site, and on this blog, soon.

And by the way, if you're anywhere near Waller County, Texas, we hope you'll take the time to visit us soon. Here's where we are.

We'll see you at the Specialtea!