This city is loaded with coffee places. There's Coffee Tree Roasters, Kiva Han, the 61C, and a Starbucks within walking distance of every Starbucks. So, imagine Munch's delight when Te Cafe opened in Squirrel Hill.

Te Cafe, which sports the parenthetical (the place for tea) underneath the sign, was a place ripe with possibilities in Munch's mind's eye.

Munch knew the silver tea service of high tea was probably too far out, but those glorious finger sandwiches of cucumber or watercress with the crusts cut off seemed so doable. "Tea," Munch thought, after polishing off a triple shot espresso latte and the thermos of coffee Munch now brings to work ever since the coffee changed in the snack bar. "Tea, the other caffeine."

Munch was intrigued to see how tea would be pulled off in such a strong coffee town. And so it was that Munch set off for Te Cafe with Dear One of Munch (DOOM), who makes a nice strong iced tea at home.

The menu is small, which Munch would suspect, just a few sandwiches, jars of biscotti and other goodies up on the counter and lots of teas. Munch and DOOM decided to order drinks and a couple of sandwiches to split.

DOOM went with the Harvest Grain Vegetable Sandwich ($5.50), which, not surprisingly, is on a whole-grain bread, which was sort of a white bread, that had a spread made from white beans and sun-dried tomatoes. It also had lettuce, tomato, red onions, provolone cheese and alfalfa sprouts.

Munch's sandwich was the Mediterranean Pan Bagna ($5.50), which was served on foccacia bread that had been baked in the form of a hearty hoagie roll. It had an olive tapenade spread. The guts of the sandwich consisted of sweet roasted red and yellow peppers, red onion, tomato, arugula and basil, all sprinkled with a balsamic vinaigrette, with grated cheese.

The woman behind the counter asked if either Munch or DOOM wanted tomato slices on the sandwiches. She explained that the sandwiches had been made in the morning and then wrapped up. As she unwrapped the plastic that was covering the sandwiches, she said they just get too soggy if the tomato is left sitting on them all morning.

The fact that the sandwiches had been sitting all morning was not really a problem for Munch, since Munch has been known to appreciate the concept of the automats of old, where sandwiches conceivably sat all day. But what happened to these sandwiches, with their fresh ingredients, is that by sitting all together, the tastes had sort of blended together, so the strong onion or the flavorful tapenade was muted by the delay from counter to mouth. The arugula was hardly noticeable as a distinct taste from the roasted peppers.

But the sandwiches were nicely arranged on pretty plates before they were served. Munch was a little surprised they didn't come automatically with a bag of chips, a pickle or some sort of something to munch on the side. (The name ain't "Munch" for nothing.)

DOOM really enjoyed the ginger lemonade ($2), but Munch was less enthusiastic about the ravin' raspberry iced tea ($2). Munch thought it tasted a little bit like medicine, but DOOM said that was just an example of how Munch had gone nuts and that the iced tea was fine. DOOM did concur, by the way, with Munch's assessment of the sandwiches.

The cafe itself was pleasant enough. Power strips lined the wall on one side where a bench is located with lots of little tables in front of it. The free wireless Internet access gave one woman the opportunity to enjoy the Skype connection on her computer's speaker by speaking in Russian into someone's answering machine.

Across the way, a counter sported another power strip in the back, which gave a man and a woman a chance to spend some time having lunch together ignoring each other as they stared into their screens. There are also a couple of overstuffed chairs and games available to play, which makes it a nice place to hang, kill some time and try a nice cup of tea.

Te Cafe, 2000 Murray Ave. Squirrel Hill, 412-422-8888.