This is an unpublished, original beat story written for the Reporting and Writing I class of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Kate Cranston and Emily Post would be pleased.
A centuries-old culture is returning to Brooklyn, and it’s bringing its pinky finger with it.
Deep in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, tucked behind the stairs of a historic brownstone, a little bit of Britain quietly resides in Le Chateau de Frenche day spa and private tearoom. Despite the Gallic name, Queen Victoria reigns inside the lace-curtained retreat, where locals can stop by in the afternoon for a spot of Harney & Sons tea, a scone with Devonshire cream or a cucumber sandwich.
Just make sure to mind your manners. Don’t dip your scone. Please, no slurping. And NEVER leave your spoon in your tea cup.
Oh, and pinkies up, of course.
But for visitors who haven’t recently brushed up on their conduct at the dinner table, the owner, Trinidad native Nikima Frenche, is bringing something to Bedford-Stuyvesant that is arguably a first for the neighborhood: formal etiquette classes, for both children and adults.
Starting at about $200 for six two-hour sessions, the classes were a direct response to her spa clients’ apprehension during formal events for work and special occasions, Frenche said.
“A lot of adults are saying when they go out to corporate dinners they don’t know which fork to use or that they’re a little loud,” she said. “There’s a part of it that sells itself. People know what they need.”
Frenche said she discovered the neighborhood’s preference for politesse after she invited etiquette expert and Positively Poised founder Vanessa White to host a dozen local girls aged six to 11 for their own private tea party this summer. To much parental praise, the girls learned – dressed up, of course – how to place heart- and star-shaped sugar cubes in passion fruit and mango tea and talk with each other respectfully, Frenche said.
“It was one hell of an event,” Frenche said. “The children appreciated it. They were really, really good at it.”
At the end of the party, the girls were given personal teacups and saucers, a diary and a blank thank you card to fill out and send back, Frenche said.
“All of them brought it back,” Frenche said. “They were all asking, ‘Would you invite me to tea again?’ ”
Frenche originally opened the spa and tearoom in her home neighborhood of Fort Greene in 2004 as a natural extension of her roots in the former British colony, where she said tea and proper manners were a part of the culture. When she opened in Brooklyn, many people saw her establishment as more appropriate in Midtown or the Upper East Side, Frenche said.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “People said, ‘You should go to Manhattan. It’s something for Manhattan.’ ”
After she was pushed out of Fort Greene by rising rents, Frenche looked east, settling on the ground floor of a Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone in June 2006. Since then, she’s firmly entrenched herself in the neighborhood, which she says is entirely underrated as a neighborhood for classic style.
“I drove over here and I was floored,” Frenche said. “I had no idea that this was what Bed-Stuy really was. Tree-lined streets, beautiful brownstones…none of the negativity that people always talk about.”
Though the business is still running in the red, Frenche said she’s trying to convince the neighborhood that etiquette can be useful for them, too.
“Some people think etiquette is for stuck-up people,” she said. “I don’t think it’s that at all. It’s a way to carry yourself in society.”
White agreed, adding that practicing etiquette helps immediately boost one’s social standing.
“When I’m out and people know that I’m a certified etiquette consultant, all of a sudden people act differently,” she said. “So that tells me that there is a need for adults to have this type of training. As long as we plant the seed, I believe that we can definitely carry it through.”
As one of the invitees to the girls’ tea party, Wendyann Charles’ six-year-old daughter Jada still respects the rules she learned during the soiree, her mother said.
“Every morning for school I give her her milk in that same teacup they gave her,” Charles said. “Even now, when I give her her milk in the morning, she always remembers how they taught her to hold the tea cup.”
Jada said she enjoyed practicing how to pour real tea into a teacup.
“My favorite part was pouring the tea and sitting down, because I like it,” she said. “I had fun and I loved it.”
Learning etiquette could be beneficial for helping kids meet on equal social terms even when they do not in other ways, Charles said.
“You see some of the kids today and they’re walking in the street and they really don’t know how to talk to people,” she said. “They have no idea of these things, especially in the neighborhood.”
Charles said a structured activity like etiquette classes is desperately needed in Bedford-Stuyvesant, adding that she once brought a two-year-old child home to its mother after seeing it wandering around in the street in front of her house.
“I think they need to be offered a lot of programs and things that will better them in the long run so they won’t have all this time to waste, like the gangs,” she said. “We need things that will help them look at life in a different way.”