Gilbert - A Fun Vacation (part 1)

 

Last Wednesday my owner told me to pack my suitcase, because we were going on a trip.

My owner's friend Diana picked us up and soon we were on our way to the Groninger countryside.

A Church! 

I love visiting churches, they're very interesting.

They had a teapot fountain in the garden. Never saw that at a church before.

Another teapot!

It turns out this church was turned into a tearoom with a tea museum attached to it as well. When the church wasn't in use anymore they put it up for sale for 1 gulden (45 euro cents) for the person with the best idea for what to do with the church. The person who came up with turning it in a tearoom/museum won. It's called de Theefabriek (the Tea Factory)

First we visited the museum.

There was a bench that said T.leutbankje (T. drinker's bench).

There were pictures of a real tea factory.

A small scale model.

And lots of information on how tea is grown and made.

This is a model of the Cutty Sark. It used to sail to China in the 19th century to get tea there. The real Cutty Sark is in Greenwich and is still 90% in its original state.

This guy is Cornelis Bontekoe.

He was a doctor from the 17th century who thought tea was the cure for almost anything.

I'm not sure what kind of Lovecraftian Tea Monster this was, but it did like to be left alone, so I didn't stay to find out more.

This might have been the mad scientist who created the Lovecraftian Tea Monster.

Not much tea left in this box.

A display of old tea packaging.

There were doors in a wall, one of them had a dodo on it. I had to open it!

A copy of Alice in Wonderland!

Opened at the tea party with the mad hatter of course.

Australian tea thingies.

Barbie having tea.

The museum was fun, but not very big. We watched a movie about how tea is made as well, then it was time to try some tea of course.

Coming next: Tea, food, and more