Our early courtship was spent in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, a city rich in history and in beautiful places to have drinks.  As well as being the place where our romance first kindled, Budapest was where we started developing from casual tea drinkers to budding students of the leaf.  Traditionally a nation of coffee drinkers, Hungary is seeing a rise in the popularity of tea.

One of the first places we shared a beverage was Angelika, a stylish cafe with comfy furnishings and a broad, multi-level terrace that looks over the Danube river to the beautiful parliament building.  Angelika’s modern decor is the result of a makeover a decade ago, but the building, which adjoins a Baroque church, has housed some kind of cafe or inn for most of its history, which goes back to 1626.  When we’ve had tea there, it has come with a slice of lemon held in a metal clasp, you can lower into the drink and squeeze at will.  Angelika also has good cakes and warm dishes.

Then there was our rendez-vous at the Gresham cafe, part of the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace.  This Art Nouveau building from the early 1900s has been restored to its former magnificence, re-opening in 2004.  Its cafe attempts to recreate the mood of the old days, when it was frequented by intelligentsia from the nearby Academy of Sciences.  Gresham stands near the stately Chain Bridge, and from the window, you can admire both the bridge and Buda palace, which perches on a hill across the river.  Gresham offers delicious cakes - we liked the Mille-Feuille, a puff pastry with vanilla cream - and a great tea list.  Loose-leaf selections include Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Keemun, Yatta Watte, Lapsang Souchong, and Darjeeling.  There are also spiced and flavored black teas, white and semi-fermented teas, and Japanese green teas.

Another historic cafe where we have lingered over an infusion is the Central.  Like the Gresham, it has been restored to its pre-communist splendor.  Unlike the Gresham, it is not visited overwhelmingly by tourists, but has - somewhat - reclaimed its late 19th-century role as a meeting place for Hungarian writers and public figures.  Daily newspapers, mounted on wooden frames with a handle at the bottom for ease of reading, hang in the entrance, from which you head left to the (very) smoky section or right for non-smoking.  Tea here comes with a slice of lemon in a little white mesh bag, another ruse allowing you to dip without getting juice on your hands.  Central also does a good goulash, and great Hungarian desserts such as Somloi galuska, a sinful concoction of sponge cake, cream, and chocolate sauce.

And then there is the place where we met for the very first time, in a patch of Buda little trodden by tourists.  Nyitott Muhely is a bookstore, performance space, craft workshop, and tea emporium, where locals gather to hold poetry readings, participate in philosophy discussions, listen to jazz, or admire the ever-changing array of art on the wall.  With events almost every evening, owner and manager Laszlo Finta must have met everyone who is anyone in Budapest’s creative world, occasionally creating a masterpiece of his own with the leatherworking equipment in the corner.  But he always has time to hoist his big jars of tea leaves off the shelves and cook you up an exotic brew.