Tucked away from the chalky cars treading through Stony Brook Village, in a cul-de-sac of upscale shops and dine-ins, like Crazy Beans diner and Pentimento Italian restaurant, sits a frosted tea room: Robinson’s Tea Room.

“I named it after my mom and dad, Edith and John Robinson,” former owner of the tea room, Loretta Vertucci, says. Her green tea eyes wander along the blueberry and cream thinly striped walls as her hands meet, folding into one another.

The grey-shingled roof hides beneath a heap of melting snow, trickling water droplets in front of the light brownish-grey outer wall paneling.

Snow tops two hedges as if someone draped a white sheet over the green boughs. They are snuggled against the front walls, scratching the bottoms of the two large 12-paneled windows that catch the steam inside, masking everything behind the cherry-jam-red door.

“The Robinson family is from England, going back a few generations,” Loretta says. “I knew it was something my parents would love. They had passed away, and it was in honor of them. They loved Stony Brook Village, and we were always down here growing up.”

Loretta and her husband, James Vertucci, purchased the cottage-like building in 1999.

“I'd been in the restaurant business for a long time, and I’ve always loved tea, everything to do with tea,” Loretta says as her eyes leave the painting and roll towards the ceiling. Her right arm flies to the middle of her chest, and she rests her palm above her heart. “We were inspired by a trip we had to the Greenport tea company.”

An older tea room already occupied the little hole-in-the-wall before Loretta and her husband turned their dreams and inspiration into reality.

“It was called ‘The Tea Room,’ but it was different, she says staring at the small room. “They had a one-page menu, and it looked different inside. It was really cute, but very simple.”

Loretta kept one of the original tea room’s decorations hanging in the back left corner inside the front wall. It is a famous work called “Suspense” by English artist Charles Burton Barber.

The printed black and white image is set in the late 1800s and is of a young girl with fair, curly hair that falls onto her light-colored robe. Her head is bent downward, and her small hands are pressed together in prayer for the breakfast resting on her lap. A smooth-haired Jack Russell terrier and a small dark-haired kitten are sitting beside the girl staring eagerly at the food.

“Everybody loves that little girl,” Loretta says staring at the image as if she once knew and loved the child inside.

The little girl and her two hungry pets are only the beginning of the quaint, and charismatic environment waiting inside the tea room.

“There's not like there's one specific tea room, current co-owner Danielle Munoz says looking at Loretta who is still fixated on the picture. “Each one is different. Some are modern. Some are trendy. Some are very old fashioned. Each one has its own personality.”

Danielle and her father, Glenn Treacher, purchased Robinson’s Tea Room from Loretta and her husband in November.

“Danielle and her family had been coming for a while, and she was interested in opening a tea room,” Loretta says, placing her hand on Danielle’s knee. “When her dad came in, we had been running it for almost 18 years, so we started talking about selling. We knew they would take good care of it and know what to do. The next thing you know, Glenn and Danielle were the new owners.”

The tea room gave Danielle and her father a way to connect to their family living an ocean away.

My dad and I are English,” she said. “My dad’s actually from England. He was born in Wales but lived in England his whole life. He came here when I was a child. Being here with all of our family over there, it’s just nice to have this place that reminds us of there.”

Even though Loretta no longer owns Robinson’s Tea Room, her vision of rural England in suburban New England still exists.

“This one is charming, Loretta says with a wide smile, her eyes panning the room.

“It’s an English countryside where it’s warm and friendly.”

“I think it has a lot of Loretta’s personality in here because Loretta’s a very warm a cheery person, and you can see those touches throughout the place. You can see her personality everywhere,” Danielle says as her brown eyes followed with Loretta’s before resting on her honey blonde-haired friend beside her.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Loretta replies, hiding the left side of her face behind a large strand of hair that’s escaped her short, messy pony tail. Her cheeks are blushed, like two small cups of pink ginger tea.

Floral, white lace curtains drape to the sides of the fogged windows. Sunlight leaps from the snow-clad lawn, breaking through the tatted drapery festooned in garlands of faux ivy speckled with white flowers.

The silky sunlight spreads onto dark red tablecloths striped in a black ivy print. The cloths dangle just above the antiquated wood floor, and are weighted down onto a four-prawned table by square glass sheets. The tabletops are spruced with mix-matched candle holders, varied sugar packets and a plastic teddy bear filled with golden honey nestled in between petite, glass salt and pepper shakers.

Sitting at a table on the left is a little curly, brown-haired girl in a pink dress with a matching headband. She’s playing with one of the golden teddy bears as if it were just as familiar a toy as her Barbie that her infant brother is currently drooling on while patiently sitting in his oversized stroller.

Little does she know that there is a much larger stuffed bear wearing a black and red plaid cap sitting on a stack of wooden high chairs behind her.

“His name is Sebastian,” Loretta says, her head turning back towards the plushy toy. “He’s been here many years. He’s a favorite with the kids. He joins them at their table and has tea.”

But the little girl is too infatuated with the little honey bear to notice Sebastian three feet behind her. Her mother looks up from her menu every few seconds to take the jar of honey away from her daughter, but as soon as the woman’s eyes fall back on the lunch specials, a pair of little hands quietly crawl towards the bear.

“I know what you want, a grilled cheese,” Loretta says, patting the girl’s neatly trimmed hair.

“Did she say grilled cheese,” the girl says excitedly as she looks back behind her, allowing the mother to once again commandeer the bear.

When the girl turns back around, she instantly notices her pirated treasure. But this time her mother had a compromise waiting for her. Removed from a white folded napkin, was a silver spoon, with floral vines along the handle, resting in the woman’s left hand. Pooled inside the spoon was the golden honey.

“I’ll give you this spoon, if you let me keep that bear,” she says.

The girl took the spoon.

Two middle-aged women, dining together beside the fogged-over, left front window, watch the little girl sucking the honey out of the spoon like lollipop. Between the two women, in the middle of the table, sits a cherry-red tea pot, two floral tea cups resting on matching plates and a three-tier tower standing tall above it all. These three fixings together are a tradition that dates back around three centuries.

“When my family goes back to England, we get high tea every day, sometimes even twice a day. We just love it so much,” Danielle says. “The afternoon tea service originated in England with Anna?”

“Yep Anna, the Duchess of Bedford,” Loretta assures her.

Anna Maria Russell was born in 1783 and died in 1857. She was a lifelong friend and Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria.

“People only ate, was it two meals a day?” Danielle says, questioning her knowledge of the history again.

“I think so,” Loretta responds. “There was a big gap between meals, and she felt like she was hungry in the middle of the day.”

“That would be me. I wouldn’t make it,” Danielle laughs.

“Anyway, she ordered up from her servants sandwiches and tea,” Danielle continues. “That was her afternoon tea, and she got her other famous relatives and friends to get in on it too. It became the royal tradition to have the afternoon tea, and it was a very posh thing to do.”

Robinson’s tea room prides itself on its afternoon tea service.

“The three tier tower is pretty typical of a tea service, and that's what we do here that's special. We have the afternoon tea service,” Danielle says.

The $28 service includes a variety of scones, sandwiches, desserts and unlimited pots of tea, any flavor of the customer’s choosing.

“You have the scones, raisin, butterscotch pecan, cinnamon and sometimes blueberry, with curdled cream and raspberry jam on the top layer,” Loretta describes as her hand motions the height of the tier level.

Robinson’s scones are praised among its customers. It is easy to see why with their soft, golden-brown insides that caress the fluffy clotted cream as it melts into the raspberry jam.

Some even claim the scones are one of the best aspects about the tea room.

“This is my favorite place of any place,” Long Island resident Penny Bleyer says. “The scones are my favorite thing to eat here. I like everything about them, the warmth, the sweetness, the clotted cream, the raspberry jam.”

However, the delectable scones are only the first stop on the three-tier tower.

“In the middle, there are assorted finger sandwiches, like the traditional cucumber or our own shrimp salad. They’re amazing. All the sandwiches are great,” Loretta says. “And on the bottom there are usually three desserts per person that vary.”

While the scones and sandwiches are a big hit with customers, they are far from the key ingredient to the classic afternoon tea.

“The idea behind high tea is that all three layers are supposed to be dainty,” Danielle says. “The food is not big and overpowering because it’s all about the teas. When you get a tea service, you really want to try as many teas as possible, and then the food is there to compliment the tea. It’s all about the tea.”

It really is all about the tea at Robinson’s Tea Room. With the purchase of a small pot for $5.95 or a large pot for $8.95, customers can choose from roughly 90 different types tea, like almond sugar cookie and passion fruit mango, from all over the world, places like India, Africa, Indonesia, China and Sri Lanka.

“When you're buying tea, even if you buy it here, it's coming from one of those places,” Danielle says. “Sometimes they'll import it and roast it here. Sometimes it's roasted there and imported. Ours comes from all over the place. There are a few companies that roast locally, like one in Connecticut that roasts and blends there. We do some blending here, so it's a combination of things.”

Having a large selection of tea is very important for tea shops because otherwise they are just like any other isle 10 in a Stop & Shop, shelves packed with Lipton tea. Customers come for the unique experience where they can order a steaming pot of coconut macaroon green rooibos with their warm chicken pot pie and follow it with a pot of apple cinnamon coffee cake to complement their pear and almond tart for dessert.

“This place is amazing,” Bleyer says. “There is nothing negative that I could say about this place. It transports you.”

But if the classics, like Buckingham Palace, are what transport you, Robinson’s has cups of that too.

“I lean towards Yorkshire and Buckingham Palace,” Loretta smiles. Those two have always been my favorites. They're just very good black teas. They're strong without being bitter. They're consistently delicious. They go with everything. It's always enjoyable. I love them.”

Loretta’s two favorite teas are also popular among the customers.

“There's definitely a top 10: Yorkshire gold, Buckingham palace, earl grey, vanilla caramel,” Danielle lists, raising a slender finger as she names each one. “That raspberry pomegranate green tea, right?,” she slowly says, unsure of her answer.

“Oh yeah, that's very popular,” Loretta nods in agreement. “Irish breakfast. There's a lot of requests for Irish breakfast.”

“Oh, and PG tips,” Danielle says, her arms flying out of her lap. “Maybe I drink all the PG tips,” she quickly followed, slowly laying her arms back down.

“No, there's a lot of PG tips lovers,” Loretta replies merrily. “ That's a black tea. I'm having that right now,” she continues, raising her cup.

Having almost every flavor of tea under the sun is a very special quality of the tea room, but it means nothing if the tea is not properly prepared. Execution is imperative.

“It’s been a lesson in what I don’t know,” Danielle laughs, looking at Loretta. “It’s like taking an intense college course on tea. I can’t believe how much I’ve learned about tea, the brewing temperatures, the brewing times and where they all come from. I don’t know if I’ll ever know all of it. I could really be a college professor of tea.”

“I have a friend who’s a tea expert, and she’s amazing,” Loretta cuts in, her hand patting Danielle’s back. “She’s taken courses for years. There’s so much to know that it’s not even funny.”

With close to four dozen flavors of tea and four ways to brew them, making the perfect cup of tea is an art form.

“We do have some of the flowering tea. That’s pretty easy. You just throw a tea ball in a pot of boiling water and set it on a tea light. Over the course of a few minutes, the tea opens up,” Danielle says as she reaches for the transparent, glass teapot sitting on a table in front of the counter.

The amber-colored jasmine tea is sitting over a glass bowl that has a short, circular tea candle inside. Before it plunges into the boiling water, the tea looks like a rolled ball of grass. As it blooms in the pot, the flower rests on the bottom, looking similar to seaweed burrowed inside coral, the long tea leaves swaying through the herbal water.

“They roll the tea, and they make it so that it begins to unfurl, and a flower blooms in the pot,” Loretta describes as she watches the submerged flower.

While blooming tea may be the most aesthetically pleasing, the is another type called loose tea that beats beats blooming tea in taste.

“With the loose tea, you’re either putting it right in the pot or in an infuser,” Danielle says. “An infuser is like a mesh that sits inside the pot, so that when you pour the tea, you don’t have a bunch of tea leaves.”

While it can get messy, loose teas’ rich flavors make them very desirable.

“A lot of tea connoisseurs really want their tea to be loose,” Danielle continues. “They feel like you get a more complex flavor, and some people say that the tea companies use their best buds, the biggest tea leaves, for loose tea. What’s leftover, the chopped, tiny pieces is what they use for bagged tea. The staff here is mostly loose tea people.”

But there is one shortcoming to loose tea that bagged tea makes up for.

“You do get more flavor varieties with the bagged tea, Daniel says. “They also use other ingredients besides tea in some of those.”

“Some of the tea bags are absolutely great,” Loretta adds.

The final way to prepare tea is still in the works at the tea room.

“We did just get in a matcha, but that’s not even on the menu yet, Danielle says. “The matcha green tea is a powdered green tea, and it gets whisked in. But I don’t know how popular that will be as a plain green tea. As a latte, that’ll work.”

While Danielle is unsure of the matcha’s popularity, the other teas have gained such a following that the Loretta created a “Wall of Fame” right beside the shelves where they keep and brew the teas.

“Everybody loves the shelf of fame,” Loretta says looking up at the wall to her right. “It started with Charles Schwab 17 years ago. When someone famous came in, they would sign their name and date, and we’d retire the cup they drank out of.”

Sitting on towards the left end of the third shelf sits a white floral cup surrounded by over two dozen celebrity tea cups. Taped to the front of the cup, on a small, square paper reads, “Yoko Ono. Artist. ‘07.”

“Yoko Ono’s cup is probably the most famous out of all, Loretta says, holding the dusty handle. “Yoko Ono’s close friends come here all the time, so they brought her one day. They asked if they could treat her to lunch. She came, and we had a great time.”

“She’s amazing,” Loretta said as she gently placed the teacup back on its small, ornate plate.

There is one more celebrity who made her way to Robinson’s Tea Room, but you will not find her cup on the “Wall of Fame.”

“Are you going to take a picture with the queen?” Loretta asks a little girl named Sienna, who was currently drawing hearts on the steamy window with her fingers. “She comes out so real in the photos. It looks like she’s really there. It’s hysterical. So cute.”

Through the front apple red doors, at the edge of the waiting room, stands a life-size cardboard cutout of Queen Elizabeth the II. She’s wearing a white gown, heavily embroidered with crystals. A royal blue sash drapes from her left shoulder to her right him. The sash is ornate with with jeweled pins of her grandfather, King George V, and her father, King George VI.

“I have a thing about the queen, even though she wasn’t very nice to Diana,” Danielle says, shrugging softly. “I love her. I just think that she’s so cool with her crown and her jewels. I wish America had a queen. We get a boring president. Royalty and high tea is so fun.”

The cardboard queen’s travels to the American tea room first started when Danielle ordered the cut-out for her own home.

“At first it was a goof because I wasn’t actually going to bring her here,” Danielle says, pointing the cut-out 10 feet away. “I had her at my house. I pulled her out of the box and said, ‘Yes, it’s the queen,’ and I started taking a bunch of pictures with her, giving her bunny ears and stuff like that.”

However, it was Danielle’s dad who suggested they make the Queen an honorable and permanent guest at the tea room.

“My dad totally made fun of me, rolling his eyes and everything, but then he saw the pictures with of me with her and was over at my house in a few minutes,” she continues in between laughs, pulling up the pictures of her with the Queen on her cellphone. “He started taking pictures with her and wanted to bring her here.”

Like Danielle’s father, Loretta was originally hesitant towards the five-foot four-inch cut-out, but eventually came to love her as well.

“I have to admit that when I first heard I was like, ‘What?,” Loretta says laughing at the cardboard queen “But she looks so real, and she’s brought a lot of smiles to people in here.”

And so the Queen stayed, welcoming customers to their afternoon tea.