Home Sweet Home
When I ask Vicki and Christine if they miss London, both assure me that America is now home. Both married Americans and feel welcome in their San Antonio community.

“People embraced us,” Vicki tells me. “We have really neat customers. In our last place we were flooded out. We had 15 inches of water. All our customers showed up with trailers to haul off everything. In England they would have said, ‘Get on with it, mate. Let us know when you’re open again.’ Here they came with mops and buckets. People here are so lovely.”

Splitting Scones
Perhaps the true test of an English tearoom is the scones. “People ask what flavor scones we do,” Vicki says with a laugh. “We don’t! We just do a Devonshire split scone.”

Even in England, plenty of would-be tearooms fail to perform when it comes to the perfect split scone, which should easily break down the middle so you can slather each half with strawberry jam and thick cream. “It took us forever,” says Vicki. “Trying to get scones to work in this heat is not easy, and trying to get them to split is very tough.” They sell approximately 150 of these little baked treats every day.

I eagerly await that first bite. The scone is a perfect warm mix of firm-but-cakey texture and sweet-but-tangy taste. It’s easy to forget my manners as I lick the cream from my fingers and wash down each bite with a gulp of PG Tips tea. Texas suddenly doesn’t feel so very far from home.

Bawdsey Manor: 18771 FM 2252 (Nacogdoches Road), San Antonio, TX 78266; www.bawdseymanor.com or (210) 651-7500.

A NOTE TO OUR READERS
"Tea at Bawdsey Manor" is from the May 2008 issue of Texas Living: People & Places, a special section of Southern Living for our subscribers in Texas.