Coffee & Treats in Largo

The bakers at the sister-owned cheesecakery use fresh ingredients to create creamy, handmade confections. This Groupon is good for 12 two-inch microcakes, and you can mix and match among the original flavor, chocolate, strawberry, and cookies 'n' cream to assemble a delicious dozen. The bite-sized baked goods are perfectly portioned to prevent guilt-induced post-cheesecake regret, and as such make a fitting gift for calorie-counting suckers for sweet or someone who underwent a surgical procedure that replaced his or her human mouth with the mouth of a striped bass.

Cuteness is a legitimate business plan at Frosting's treat boutique, which is minimally dressed in cream-colored shades throughout both indoor and outdoor seating areas. The cupcake flavors ($2.75 each) come in 26 varieties and, like the seasons, rotate daily. Nibble on the edelweiss, richly almond tasting and topped with further almond buttercream, or crunch into the french-toast inspired Frenchie with a buttery maple dollop up top. There's even a few gluten-free flavors, such as the densely choctacular and fudge-topped cioccolato and the flavorful coconut-dusted snowflake.

The word bagel serves as an umbrella term, describing a whole host of flavored doughs, just so long as they have a hole in the middle. The bakers at The Bagelry take full advantage of that potential for variety, pairing more than 25 flavors of bagel with 11 styles of cream cheese. They also top their circular creations with breakfast goodies such as eggs, bacon, and shredded Sunday crossword puzzles. For lunch, they turn to a wider variety of grains to make sandwiches such as the meat-free Yenta with cucumbers and muenster cheese and the Zadey with corned beef and pastrami in thousand island dressing.

From asiago cheese to orange cranberry, Bethesda Bagels has a flavor for every bagel eater to pair with spreads such as chive or lox cream cheese. The handmade bagels can be ordered one delicious bagel or mini bagel at a time or by the baker’s dozen. Along with the namesake menu item, Bethesda Bagels also serves all-day breakfast, plus overstuffed sandwiches, pizzas, and other snacks, including fancy cookies and their more casually dressed cousin, the muffin.

To say Capital Teas’ proprietors, Peter and Manelle Martino, know tea might be a bit of an understatement. Fifth-generation tea merchant Manelle’s great-great-grandfather Francis Van Reyk was a Dutch tea planter who immigrated in the 1890s to present-day Sri Lanka, where he managed the Diyagama Estate, from which the Martinos now source their Great Grandfather’s tea. Manelle’s family has been in the tea trade ever since, a tradition she has carried to her own specialty tea business, which has several boutique locations throughout the D.C. and Maryland area. Additionally, Peter has become a popular speaker at World Tea Expos, where he frequently educates and inspires the tea world.

In addition to tea from Sri Lanka, the business carries more than 200 loose teas and herbal infusions from 18 countries including India, China, Japan, Malawi, and Kenya. A sniffing wall dispenses wafts of black, oolong, and mate teas, and knowledgeable employees drift around the store’s tasting stations to explain each flavor’s nuances and read the tea leaves in tasting cups.

Capital Teas also pairs customers with accompaniments such as teapots, brewers, tea-infused chocolate, and artisanal honey. In-store patrons may sample free tea samples—which are brewed fresh daily—, while online purchasers receive a free sample with every order.

Fueled by customers' suggestions, the skilled decorators at Sweet Themez create custom cakes, cupcakes, and cake pops to suit all occasions. Armed with buttercream and sweet sugar dough, they craft every kind of cake imaginable, from sheet cakes shaped as baby gowns for infant christenings and cupcakes shaped as billiard balls for pool-table christenings.

More than 25 cake and icing flavors are available, such as carrot cake with cream-cheese icing, chocolate cake topped with cookie crumbles and mint-cookie icing, and cinnamon allspice cake stuffed with cinnamon cream and apple filling. Sweet Themez’s gluten-free and vegan flavors cater to customers with dietary restrictions.