Fancy That's Your Cup of Tea

Walpole has plenty of venues to offer coffee to local residents. 

But if tea is more of your cup of . . . well, tea, you're in luck. There's one of those too, and in the area, thanks to one resident who took her love for vintage tea products to the next level. 

In early 2011, Sarah Erlandson, a Norwood resident and Westwood native, opened Fancy That - A Tea Boutique, which sits comfortably on Washington Street/Rte. 1-A in Walpole.

The shop offers a number of custom-made boutique gift items, tea cups, treats, and other items for sale, but doesn't serve tea. But the core of the business is the rental of vintage China, flatware and glassware. Those items are rented for weddings and parties, among other events. Erlandson also works with various buyers and artists across the country to find exciting and fitting items, including one artist in Texas who makes jewelry out of broken China.

"I've had people come to me with a broken heirloom piece and I've made Hanukkah gifts with it," she said. 

The business dates back to 2000, when Erlandson began collecting vintage China and flatware. The collection became so robust that she felt there would be value in renting it for a variety of events, such as weddings or parties. 

"When you start a collection and amass a huge amoutn, you realize you have to do something with it, or else you're 'strange,'" said Erlandson, who runs the business with her husband, Brad McCracken. 

But most of the business was done online, and even in the down economy, flourished enough to necessitate a store front. 

"We were just open by appointment for the vintage rentals, but we'd get a lot of people who would come in and want to buy things," Erlandson said. "I have a huge collection of vintage china plates, flatware."

In McCracken's point of view, the process of growth for the business was "backwards."

"We started as an internet company, and through time have gone from the internet to warehouse to storefront, brick and mortar, so it's backwards," he said. "It's worked extremely well. We have done that out of the customers' demand."

While the majority of patrons are female, a handful of male customers do frequent the shop, Erlandson said, most notably to try a rare form of tea grown in Cornwall, England called Tregothnan.

"They've been growing tea ornamentally since the 1300s," McCracken said. "Just as a bush, and then after a while, in the last nine years, they started cultivating it." 

During the year, the shop holds a series of "Tea-at-Two" events, featuring author readings and performances. All events for this year are sold out, according to their website.