You are getting sleepy

THE open door in front of Jin Patisserie on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice beckons. Inside is a serene courtyard garden with bamboo nodding in the breeze and water spilling over the top of a granite disk. Graceful grasses are planted at the foot of this Zen fountain. A couple of friends seated at a garden table huddle close in conversation between bites of white chocolate cake crowned with a fresh strawberry and another of coconut cream and mango mousse. A waiter hurries away with a bouquet of white porcelain teapots.

The cakes are displayed in a wraparound glass case in the tiny house and workshop in back, where pastry chef and owner Kristy Choo also sells packaged teas and her fragile and unusual cookies. Choo found her passion for pastries as a student at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, and has been working with sugar and chocolate and everything nice ever since.

Midafternoon on a Saturday and practically every person here has a pot of fragrant tea in front of them. Though some have come for a conventional lunch -- a sandwich set or a chicken salad, say -- most people are drawn by Choo’s contemporary high tea.

Jin Patisserie takes a more casual approach than the grand London or Hong Kong hotels, or even our own Hotel Bel-Air. You won’t find tiered silver platters or waiters in tuxes. You will find Choo in her whites scribbling orders in the garden.

The intricate high tea is laid out on a square porcelain plate. There are two finger sandwiches -- both neat rectangles of egg salad on white bread trimmed of its crusts. You also get a delicious mini-quiche, in this case flavored with tomato and spinach.

Everything else on the plate is sweet, sometimes very sweet. Scones are not the crumbly traditional ones. They’re more refined, almost like brioche in texture, and come with a crock of Choo’s homemade jam and a lavish amount of thick, ivory-colored clotted cream.

There’s a slice of rich, orange-scented pound cake too, a trio of miniature cookies, a couple of glistening petit fours and one of Choo’s dainty chocolates (also sold inside in another glass case).

Tasting this and that is an hour’s absorbing work. Allow plenty of time, though. When it’s busy, and it almost always is on the weekends, service can be very slow. It does give you time, however, to savor the pot of tea, which comes with every $18 high tea.

It’s much more fun if everybody at the table chooses a different one, maybe a “Fleur de Geisha,” which is sencha scented with cherry blossom, or The du Hammam, a Turkish-inspired blend of green tea with flowers and green dates.

In the end, it’s so relaxing sitting there in the faint sea breeze, sugared up and sated, that I’m wondering where I could find the nearest hammock. Instead, we set off desultorily down Abbot Kinney, to do a little window shopping.

virbila@latimes.com

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Jin Patisserie

Where: 1202 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice

When: 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Street parking.

Price: High tea, $18; scones set, $10; salads, $6.50 to $12; quiche set or sandwich set, $12; children’s set, $10; cakes, $5.25; chocolates, $2 each

Info: (310) 399-8801, www.jinpatisserie.com