Like Olympic swimmers and gremlins, tea leaves only reveal their true power after being dunked in water. Unleash hidden strength with today’s Groupon: for $5, you get $10 worth of café fare, tea, and coffee at Four Friends Tea Room in Pearland. Part of this Groupon's value must be applied toward a food item.

Guests dally daily between Four Friends Tea Room's bright walls, supping on quality loose-leaf tea and simple sandwiches and purchasing art right off the walls. Chat up a chum in the intimate Gold Room, or reserve the main dining room, which seats up to 30 people, to host an extended pinkie-jousting tournament. The sumptuous selection of sandwiches, soups, and salads includes the triple-decker club ($7.50), the flaky croissant sandwich ($8.50), and a lovingly concocted salad of tender grilled chicken ($8.50). In addition to day-to-day high ($16) and low ($10) teas, the café carefully pours out tea-room samplers ($8) that give guests a tongue-tickling taste of the shop's leafy luster. The community quenchers at Four Friends Tea Room keep fans abreast of the latest menu items, events, and their incipient tradition of murder-mystery dinner theater on the café's Facebook page.