Arrghh, I’m such a cliche – a Brit (or is it just the English?) that can’t go without a nice cup of tea each day! I’m not obsessive – I know plenty who really couldn’t go without a cuppa whereas I could skip it if I had to – especially in the Orlando heat. But two weeks without a decent cup of tea – why put myself through it if I don’t have to?!
Walt Disney World is not completely void of tea. In fact it will be an option almost everywhere – you’ll certainly find it in all the food courts. And it is tea – but not as we know it. I’m not sure what it is – but its definitely not your typical, ‘English breakfast’ style tea – even if some of them pretend to be. Good old PG Tips/Yorkshire/Tetley/Whatever your favoured brand – it most definitely is not! I don’t think the milk helps either to be honest, tbut the biggest problem is the tea itself.
My solution is to take the old PG Tips with me. I’ve checked on the US Customs website, and I’m not telling you to break any laws. Their comment is: There are no restrictions on the importation of coffee, tea or spices for personal use, although they may be subject to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections if a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officer suspects contamination or insect infestation of the product. So you’re free to take enough to last you your trip – although I always make sure to pack it in my luggage rather than my carry-on, just in case it looks a bit dodgy. If you’re staying in a Walt Disney World hotel you won’t necessarily have a kettle in your room – but may have a coffee maker. I brew it up empty and use the hot water for the tea. Or I take the tea bag with me to the food court etc and get boiling water from there.
Your other options for a cuppa in Walt Disney World are
- The Grand Floridian Afternoon Tea. This is a fairly expensive way to meet your craving unless you’ll enjoy the experience itself. I’ve never tried this, so I don’t know what tea is offered I’m afraid!
- Take a trip over to Epcot to the UK section in The World Showcase they sell boxes of Twinings there – including your regular English Breakfast , but not the ‘Everyday’ kind (the one in the yellow box) unless they’ve changed their stock. However when we went a few years ago and I’d forgotten to bring them with me, my husband point blank refused to let me buy any as its so much more expensive than it would be here.
Now I don’t drink coffee at all, but I’ve heard that the coffee isn’t all that great around Walt Disney World either. The moderate and deluxe hotels have a coffee maker in their room and will come with coffee in a filter pack. Last time I was there it was Nescafe, but you’re free to bring your own. Around the ‘World’ itself, its hard to get a decent brew, so I’m told – there isn’t a Starbucks/Costa etc on site. I have heard very good things about the coffee at Kona Cafe, ast the Polynesian Resort – so if you’re over that way and have a craving – that’s the place you want to stop.
So there you go – BRiTMiCK’s tips for a great cuppa in Walt Disney World – take it with you and make it yourself!
I’m not a brit, but I am Canadian… and I NEED my daily (er, 3 times daily) cup of tea. We have a coffee shop in Ontario called Tim Hortons that besides coffee and donuts, serves steeped tea that is REALLY good and I crave it bad when I’m in Disney World. I always forget that you need to specify HOT tea when you’re in the South haha… to me tea is hot unless otherwise specified. While most Canadians are coffee drinkers I think, there is a large amount of tea drinkers (I was once a server and I would say 25% of people would ask for tea after dinner instead of coffee).
Anyways, my main problem at Disney is that at about 75% of the places that I’ve bought tea they have no milk to put it in and the options are either cream, or little packets of creamer. Yuck. We usually bring our own tea bags so we can at least have a good cup in the morning (we typically stay off property and have a kitchen, or if desperate we use the coffee maker to boil water).
As an occasional coffee drinker I can vouch that as hard as it is to get a decent cup of tea, it is 10 times harder to find a decent cuppa coffee. Kona is the way to go for sure!
Hi Angela. I’m glad I’m not the only one! You’re comment about hot tea made me smile – iced tea was a whole new concept to me when I first visited the States! Tea should most definitely always be hot, in my book. And you’re right, the milk is definitely an issue – I guess if the majority of people drink coffee then creamer is what they’ll have, but it really makes the tea icky. Nice to know other people bring their own tea bags too!
Good article! It’s also impossible to get a decent iced coffee at Disney World. You’d think a place like Disney, located in one of the hottest states in the nation, would keep some cold coffee on hand, but nooooo….their idea of making iced coffee is to pour hot coffee over ice. Um, no.
Eew, hot coffee over ice? Doesn’t that make it luke warm? Sounds delightful.
As a fellow tea fan (though one from the US), I enoyed reading this post! I also have used the in room coffee pot to heat water for tea when at Disney World. On my most recent trip we stayed at the Grand Floridian and found that their 24/7 quick service restaurant, Gasperilla Grill, offers a selection of Twinnings tea bags which can be used with the hot water machine for free when refilling your refillable resort mug. Of course you need to buy the mug first, but it’s only about $14 and then you can get as much as you like in it. The Grand Floridian room also had two Twinnings tea bags by the coffee maker. Not sure how the tea offerings are at other resorts, but wanted to share this info. We also enjoyed a nice pot of Twinnings tea – with milk – after our lunch at the Rose and Crown in the UK pavillion. Thanks for writing this blog!
Hi Heidi. Thanks for the info – I didn’t know the Grand Floridian offered proper tea. Might have to add that to my long list of reasons for staying there one visit