High tea, Thai style

After braving the massive crowds at the Wat, we headed to one of
Bangkok's oldest hotels, the Oriental, to experience another ritual,
this one: high tea. The setting was an English style conservatory in
what they call "the author's wing." We selected the Asian tea, which
featured delicacies such as pandanas scones with sundried bananas,
tuna finger sandwiches with lemongrass, coconut profitoroles with
citrus cream. More than anything else--perhaps with the exception of
fish sauce--pandanas has been the distinctive flavor of our trip. It
is used throughout Southeast Asia, in tea and desserts. It is herbal
and fragrant and almost yeasty, but very difficult to describe. We've
been seeking out pandanas--I keep calling it "the flavor" throughout
our trip. We're hooked, on the pandanas, not on high tea.