Cheryl Shops

Website of the week
When I was in Boston over Memorial Day weekend, I made sure we stopped at the Diptyque store on Newbury Street. This is one of my favorite places to hit in Beantown, because not only do they carry every scent of candle, perfume, soap, and what-not that Diptyque makes, they also carry cool French stuff that you can't find anywhere else. My most recent discovery is Mariage Freres tea; I bought this vanilla-flavored green tea by them (I am a tea drinker, not a coffee-drinker) and I can't get enough of it. Sadly, Mariage Freres' official site does not do much, like, say, have much of anything. I did, however, find a lovely little Texas-based mini-chain called Sloan Hall that does sell the line online. Sadly, you can't sniff the teas online (part of the fun!), but the pictures and descriptions do help (I have my eye on the Bouddha Bleu, Marco Polo Vert, and the Oriental). They're $18 for a tin (a bit more than Celestial Seasonings, but if you're a tea lover, well worth it), and the tea is loose, so you need an infuser or a French press-type teapot (I have an excellent little one from Bodum on West 14th). As for the rest of the website, they carry a nice selection of candles (including a line of tea-influenced scents from Mariage Freres) and bath products, but since last week's website of the week was bath-and-body-oriented, I won't go into too much detail here. The important thing is the tea, and I find it amusing that the only website that appears to sell it is based in Texas. Maybe I do have something in common with those Red State people...