Deb Shangraw is hoping her new business, Lady Ball’s Victorian Boutique and Tearoom will bring something new and also something old to Westbrook.
The antique dealer and tearoom offers reproductions and antiques from other parts of the country. It also offers loose-leaf tea in a comfortable, pleasant surrounding, something no other business in Westbrook is doing.
Shangraw has always loved Victorian-era antiques, which she has collected as a hobby for years.
Shangraw felt serving tea was a natural accompaniment to the antique shop. The Victorian era was the era of high tea. In those days, they didn’t have tea bags. All of the tea was loose-leaf tea, and in keeping with her shop’s theme, Shangraw wanted to serve authentic Victorian-era tea.
“Victorian-era tea time. It sort of went hand-in-hand with the Victorian boutique,” she said.
What makes loose-leaf tea different, is the fact that it’s not processed and so looks like actual leaves instead of something ground up. It is also brewed differently than tea in a bag. Loose-leaf tea is steeped for three to five minutes, then strained and enjoyed with or without cream and sweetener.
According to Shangraw, the loose-leaf is much better than bagged tea, and she has trouble drinking bagged tea since switching over.
As for her shop, Shangraw offers reproductions of antiques that are mostly from North Carolina, Mississippi and Illinois as well as antiques from around the country. She said about 80 percent of her stock is reproductions and 20 percent antiques. She said she avoids selling things in the New England style, because she feels those pieces are common in this area.
“What we’re trying to do here is have items that are unique to the area,” she said. “We get southern types as well as the western style. We don’t want to be known as an antiques shop. We want to be an upscale boutique versus a packed antique shop. I guess elegant is the word I use to describe what I sell.”
While the shop is a little cluttered inside, it’s nothing like an average antiques shop with things placed willy-nilly here and there. Each room looks as it may have looked in the middle of the 19th century, with a little extra around the edges. There are porcelain dolls, couches, chairs and sinks along with various other items including tea sets.
“It’s something different,” said Westbrook City Councilor Mike Foley, who is a business partner with Shangraw in a computer services company. “There’s nothing like that around.”
The shop opened at the beginning of June and will be offering tea as well as antiques and reproductions, once it receives a license from the city to do so. The City Council was scheduled to vote on the license Monday night, after the American Journal’s deadline.
While she is still waiting for her license, Shangraw has already had some customers who have come by and bought some loose-leaf tea to brew at home. She’s also had a few customers have tea with her in the shop, which she offered free of charge to try to pique their interest. The ladies of the Red Hat Society, which is a group of older women who get together wearing purple dresses with red hats, said they would definitely be back.
“We were very impressed,” said Patricia Woodward of the Westbrook Red Hat Society. “”To us it was unique, and we really enjoyed ourselves. I think it’s really nice.”
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