Cruising through the food-court-like atmosphere of the central terminal at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, tea-drinking travelers are confronted with a small number of choices. But after all of the fussing with luggage and boarding passes, on the other side of the anxious-making security screening, it's quite an appealing idea to sit down and relax with a nice cup of tea. A dart thrown blindly in just about any direction inside of Sea-Tac Airport will hit a Starbucks - Seattle is, after all, where the behemoth company that brought espresso into the hands of consumers who had formerly known no coffee of higher quality than Folger's Instant got its start. Starbucks does sell tea alongside its primary offerings of coffee drinks, as well as a smattering of frozen things and concoctions that contain tea in addition to a host of other ingredients. But for a hot cup of 100% pure tea leaves, a more desirable option is Dilettante Mocha Café. In addition to a better selection of pure-leaf tea, Dilettante is also likely to have a fairly short waiting line, since the people in diligent pursuit of a Seattle-style latte fix are directly across the way, at Starbucks, behind many others doing the same thing.
Dilettante is best known as a chocolate manufacturer and dessert place, and it offers a fairly good selection of beverages as well, even in the down-sized airport version of its cafés. The tea selection is not extensive, nor is it thoroughly documented, but it's decent. There are three choices: English Breakfast, Green Tea and Oolong. All three are teas made by Harney and Sons, and of respectable quality. They come in three sizes and are presented to the customer with the tea already steeping, tea bags in the cup with tags neatly tucked into the lid for safe-keeping. Harney and Sons tea bags are considerably better than most: roomy and able to circulate water fairly freely through nylon mesh. While this method might be a compromise for people accustomed to high quality loose leaf tea, savored slowly from handsome tea cups, for tea-on-the-go it's a pretty enjoyable cup of tea.
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