Formal Afternoon Teas

A pot of tea, a plate of finger sandwiches and a selection of pastries and scones: In America, this wonderful way to wile away the afternoon is commonly, though mistakenly, known as “high tea.” In Britain, where it originated, “high tea” is simply an old-fashioned name for the evening meal; it’s also called “meal tea.” The light, elegant, scone-centric meal served at fancy hotels is called “low tea” or “afternoon tea”. Whatever you call it, here are four places to get afternoon tea on Long Island. Prices are per person.

230 Merrick Rd., Rockville Centre

516-208-8521, chatnoirtea.com

Owner Emma Tso is a talented pastry chef, and her afternoon tea($22) includes sandwiches, miniature pastries, warm scones, cream and jam and a pot of tea. Open 7 days a week. Reservations required.

97-E Main St., Stony Brook

631-751-1232

Robinson’s service afternoon tea Tuesday to Sunday. $26 buys unlimited tea, about 10 finger sandwiches, fresh scones, cream and jam and desserts. Reservations required.

225 Main St., Port Jefferson

631-476-8327, thesecretgardentearoom.com

The Street Garden’s menu has more modest options, but the full afternoon tea, $26.95, includes scones, fresh fruit, tea sandwiches, mini desserts and a pot of tea. Open Tuesday to Sunday.

Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Montauk Highway, Great River

631-277-3895, bayardcuttingarboretum.org

The cafe is open Tuesday to Sunday. Afternoon tea($25.95) includes tea sandwiches, desserts and pastries, scones with cream and jam and a pot of tea. Reservations required 24 hours in advance.

The beautiful island country of Madagascar has a serious school shortage. About a third of Malagasy children have no access to education because the schools are too far away or severely overcrowded. Thinking Hus, a non-profit dedicated to increasing global access to education, plans to tackle the issue with a series of 3D-printed schools, the first of which was completed in April 2022.

The 765-square-feet structure, named Bougainvillea, will house 30 students. The construction a began with the printer pouring a cement-like (水泥状) mixture in a pattern to create the walls. The entire process took just 18 hours! The roof, doors and windows were locally sourced, and the walls were made of a cement mixture that can resist big environmental pressures in the area. Bougainvillea was 3D printed by 14 Trees, a company with experience printing buildings throughout Kenya and Malawi.

Maggie Grouts, the 22-year-old founder of Thinking Huts, is a senior at the University of Colorado and was just 15 when she started Thinking Huts. Adopted from a rural village in China when she was 18 months old, Grout realized that not all kids were as fortunate as her and wanted to help. The idea for the 3D-printed schools came to her after brainstorming(集思广益) with her father on ways to use the technology for the greater good.

The 3D printing approach shrinks the construction turnaround time from months to days, as well as the cost. This allows more schools to be built in less time and reduces the building’s carbon footprints. And these savings in time, cost and materials meet a real need for education infrastructure (基础设施) to help bridge the global opportunity gap.

“Thinking Huts hopes to have a Thinking Hut in every community where children do not have a place for education and is fundraising to develop this goal. By using 3D printing, we are combining the potential of technology with architectural solutions that tackle real problems the world faces within education,” says Grouts.

A new study of older adults finds excessive daytime napping (小睡) may signal an increasing risk of Alzheimer’s disease (阿尔茨海默症). Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital report a relationship between daytime napping and cognitive (认知的) aging: excessive daytime napping predicts an increased future risk of Alzheimer’s, and a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s speeds up the increase in daytime napping during aging.

“Daytime sleep behaviors of older adults are often ignored, and a consensus for daytime napping in clinical practice and health care is still lacking,” said Peng Li of the Medical Biodynamics Program in Brigham’s Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders. “Our team calls for a closer attention to 24-hour sleep patterns — not only nighttime sleep but also daytime sleep — for tracking the health of older adults.”

Researchers at the Brigham recognized that all previous studies on Alzheimer’s disease assessed napping within a participant only once, and most of which were subjective and questionnaire-based. In the new study, more than 1000 individuals, with an average age of 81, were provided Actical, a watch-like device, to wear on their wrist for up to 14 days. After napping episodes were identified, the nap duration and frequency were calculated.

The results suggest that excessive daytime napping may signal an increasing risk of Alzheimer’s, and that faster yearly increase in daytime napping may be a sign of worsening or unfavored clinical progression of the disease.

Researchers acknowledge that although the method of the new study has been widely used in sleep field studies, they recognize that polysomnography (多导睡眠记录仪) is the gold standard for sleep scoring. Moreover, the participants studied were older, and therefore, the findings may not be easily translated to younger people. In addition, future studies should test whether a direct intervention in daytime napping can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s or cognitive decline.

“We hope to draw more attention to daytime sleep patterns and the importance of patients noting if their sleep schedule changes over time,” said co-senior author Kun Hu of the Medical Biodynamics Program. “Sleep changes are critical in shaping the internal changes in the brain.”