How to Serve Afternoon Tea at the Drop of a Hat

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, drop the hats and enter my contest (see below).

Afternoon tea does not need to be only for special occasions. You don’t always have to dress up. Yes, it’s more work than serving chips and soda, but with a little practice and some key items on hand, you can be prepared to serve afternoon tea easily and quickly, as I did this afternoon.

I assembled the above table in about twenty minutes. It’s important to note I have a designated corner of my home that is mostly clutter-free and ready to go. Do you have one? Here’s what I did in order:

1. Preheated the oven and popped in some pre-made scones straight from the freezer.
2. Filled my teakettle with filtered water and set it on high to boil.
3. Chose the tea I wanted to serve (Mim Darjeeling) and filled my tea sac with it.
4. Set the table with two teacups and spoons, tea plates, already ironed tea-sized cloth napkins, and a filled milk and sugar set. All these items live in my kitchen cupboards so I can easily grab them.
5. I picked out my teapot. Since I wanted the matching warmer, I decided on the smaller pot and filled the red carafe you see in the picture with more brew. Since this was casual, I just refilled the teapot with the tea from the carafe when we ran out. Kept our brew nice and hot!
6. I pulled the scones out of the oven, placed four on a salad-size plate, remembered I had a few pieces of toffee stashed away and added them, and cut up one beautiful in-season red pear. I quickly bathed the slices in a little lemon water so they wouldn’t turn brown and added the plate of goodies to the table.

That’s it!

What didn’t I do? There are two items I would have added if they were on hand. But they weren’t and I went without. Can anyone guess? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think. I’ll send some looseleaf tea out to the first two people who guess correctly. Let the picture help you figure out what two simple items  I would have added to this simple assembly of a cream tea, based on what I’ve shared here at Tea Party Girl. Good luck!

For more information about serving afternoon tea quickly, be sure to see my article, How to Build Your Tea Party Pantry.

Internal Tags: The Tea Table
January 18th, 2008 |   read 9 comments or add your own Print This Post
Did you like this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed

Tea Party Girl, Do You Sell Tea?

I’m asked this question often. The simple answer? Yes and no.

Someday I may sell my own line of tea from this website. But I need to choose to jump through the health department’s hurdles first, and I’ve chosen not do that. Some teas I purchase in bulk at wholesale prices and sell locally to friends and family to pay for my habit of drinking multiple pots per day. These are not teas, however, I can sell over the Internet. Yet.

In the meantime, I try and point you, my readers to teas I do recommend. In September, for example, I reviewed some of the dessert teas offered by The Art of Tea. You can read the the review here. And when I list teas in my writing, for example the list of looseleaf teas for the beginning brewer in the article, “The 23 Best Gifts for the Tea Party Enthusiast” I link so you can purchase them.

Tea Party Girl does not offer paid reviews. In other words, I won’t give you a good review of a product whose company has paid me to write said review. Sometimes companies approach me and ask to send me free tea-related items to review on this site. I almost always say yes, as free tea items are a definite perk to this job, wouldn’t you agree? But it is in your best interest for me to give an honest review. And your best interest is foremost in my mind because if I don’t have readers, what’s the point? So my commitment is to offer you my authentic perspective on tea and tea-related items so you can make informed purchasing decisions. 

Recently, Choice Organic Teas sent me some samples. They sent me teabags, but they do sell looseleaf teas on their site. Their teas stand out to me because the company claims that over half their tea offerings are fair trade certified,”far surpassing the numbers of any other tea company in the United States,” their website claims. It’s quite inspiring to read their web page, “Why Fair Trade” and remember how the choices of those who have money (us) can affect those who don’t.

They sent me four different teas: Organic Himalaya Green Tea, Organic Magnolia Oolong Tea, Organic Earl Grey with Lavender Blossoms, and Organic Lemon Lavender Mint Herb Tea. I tried the Earl Grey first. The individual teabag packages do not have brewing instructions on them. I did find general brewing instructions on their website and maybe they offer them on the boxes of teabags they sell. For an Earl Grey black tea, I would brew it with a rolling boil of filtered water for four minutes. My result was slightly bitter, but with the distinctive Earl Grey flavor. I tore open the teabag and not surprisingly found very small leaves, if one can call them leaves. In the green tea, the texture was like rough sand. This may explain the bitterness, as I may have brewed it too long.

The story was the same with all four teas regarding the size of the leaves inside the teabags. Teabags most often package tea leaves that resemble crumbs, often because they are less expensive and provide a quick infusion. I cannot vouch for their looseleaf teas, though I would assume the tea leaves are more intact. I cannot overemphasize, though, how wonderful it is to drink with a clear conscience, knowing my cup of tea is not at the exploitation of the one who picked the leaves for it. I would look more closely at this line of teas for that reason alone.

I’m curious, do you buy any of your tea online? Why or why not? I would love to hear from you in the comments below. 

Internal Tags: Tea The Beverage
January 17th, 2008 |   read 4 comments or add your own Print This Post
Did you like this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed

You ARE Watching Masterpiece Theatre Aren’t You?

Every Sunday evening for the next three months, your local PBS station is airing new and old adaptations of Jane Austen’s work plus a biopic on her life. I just needed to make sure you knew.

Visit the main site to learn all the ins-and-outs of schedules, stars, etc. If it’s not enough to feed your Austen-adaptation obsession, be sure to visit the Becoming Jane blog for all the You-Tube interviews, previews, trivia, etc., you could possibly want.

Last Sunday featured a new adaptation of Persuasion (at least for us in the U.S.) and I thoroughly enjoyed a tall, blond version of Captain Wentworth paired up with a less meek Anne Elliot. The feature sped by in a quick ninety minutes, so the tense chemistry was thick from the start.

However, it is the scenery, costumes, language, and manners of these period pieces that take my breath away. I submerse myself in them like a warm bath at the end of a long day. When Frederick and Anne see each other for the first time, I switch between the expressions on their faces and the larkspur in the milk-white pitcher sitting in the sunny corner of the window-seat next to the small-paned leaded window. My heart reaches out in memory to my own youth when Anne weeps over believing Frederick will marry someone else; yet that same heart now longs for the pastoral beauty of England to be more of an everyday occurrence. And of course, I’m always on the lookout for scenes with tea, of course.

Again, I find it ironic that the resurgence of the afternoon tea ritual means Victorian tea rooms are springing up throughout America. Yet, it is the Regency period so many of us love, the time BEFORE Queen Victoria. Maybe it explains why the afternoon tea party is often stereotyped as stuffy and stiff. But the empire-waist is returning to fashion, so maybe there’s hope of relaxed, yet elegant tea times after all.

Speaking of Queen Victoria, I want to make sure all my readers also know of the return of the magazine by the same name. I’ve received the first two issues and it only comes out six times per year. I do find the magazine a little slim for the price. However, nothing beats Victoria for the photographs portraying the art of a time period filled with beauty. The Jan/Feb cover , for example, features a beautifully handwritten letter with an old-fashioned ink pen written on a desk shared with antique books. Click on the Victoria Magazine link for a picture.

Victoria Magazine’s Editors also published a book I own, The Pleasures of Tea: Recipes and Rituals. As much as I enjoy blogging, and the energy of the Internet community, I readily admit I cannot replicate the beauty of sitting down with a book like this. My favorite tea books, including this one, are those with full-color photographs. Losing myself in the tea world this way inspires me when I get tired of trying hard to keep it beautiful in a Wal-mart world.

On that note, allow me to leave you today with some Austen language for your winter evening:

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

“I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.”

Sigh…

Are you watching Masterpiece Theatre?

Internal Tags: Tea Reads
January 15th, 2008 |   read 8 comments or add your own Print This Post
Did you like this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed

Four Possible Themes for Your Winter Event

If you came to Tea Party Girl because you are planning a tea party and need more info, I recommend you start with the question I answer in this article: Is it a Party with Tea or a Tea Party? . For the following article, I offer up some ideas for Parties with Tea.

Winter is a time to celebrate the gifts only winter brings. It’s often a time to take stock and focus on what really matters to you. For some, yearly obligations with family is a relief to have behind them and in winter they can cozy up with ones they feel the closest to. In Tea Party Girl’s life, this means simplifying down to focus on only the five of us who live under the same roof. Winter is about starker decorations like bare tree limbs, the beauty of white and cream, and firelight. Here’s a few ideas for celebrating the last weeks of winter.

I modified this list with some help from the following books:

1. Bless This Food:Four Seasons of Menus, Recipes, and Table Graces
2. Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions:Reviving Victorian Family Celebrations of Comfort and Joy

• Redeem Groundhog Day–Celebrate Candlemas Instead-Traditionally celebrated on February 2, this day marks winter’s halfway point. In the past, candles had to be made instead of picked up at store. Candle-making, however, can still be a simple handcraft for a group. If there are children involved, it is recommended to use sheets of beeswax to roll around the wick instead of dipping them. Even if you don’t want to make the candles, this is the day to light as many as you can (non-scented are the best choice for this). If it’s a stormy day, all the better! At the very least, eat dinner with your family only by candlelight on this day of the year.
• President’s Day-One of my very favorite simple suggestions in Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions: Reviving Victorian Family Celebrations Of Comfort & Joy is to add a Lincoln Log structure to your table decorations and serve cherry pie on President’s Day. Isn’t that a great idea? Since the Fourth of July is America’s most celebrated patriotic holiday, but smack dab in summer, why not go patriotic in the middle of winter? Plan your winter event around red, white, and blue, or celebrate some of the best America has to offer in February. Some ideas I have are to include vintage candy or toys made here in the U.S. either as decorations or favors.
• Mardi Gras–Fat Tuesday is on February 5th this year, traditionally marking the end of revelry between the Twelfth Night of Christmas and the start of Lent. Mardi Gras can represent many levels of decadence and tackiness, but the colors of green, yellow, and purple with costume jewelry galore can still provide a great party theme for even the more sober among us. Use your imagination and find a reason to celebrate “just because” you can.
• Ash Wednesday/Lent-Do you have a few friends who spur you on to “love and good deeds?” Who are your kindred spirits you can share the good, bad, and the ugly with? Why not gather an intimate group together for some true confessing? Then pray for or encourage one another in the small steps needed in your lives for real change. There’s a reason those wooden boxes with priests sitting in them have stayed in style over the centuries and psychologists get paid so well. Confession often frees the soul for true freedom. If you share friendship that can accommodate transparency, celebrate it!

Why didn’t you include Valentine’s Day as a theme?-A complete Valentine’s Day themed tea will be available for download very soon! If you’re interested in receiving it, be sure to sign-up for my email updates in the top right corner of this website.

Of course, all of the above parties need to include tea, if for no other reason than to invite this wonderful beverage who has been often discriminated against in the past.

What winter event will you plan or attend?

Internal Tags: Best, Tea Party Themes
January 14th, 2008 |   read 4 comments or add your own Print This Post
Did you like this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed

Teach Your Children Well–The Top Five Mealtime Etiquette Lessons for Children

Today my son’s grammar lesson involved handwriting a snail-mail letter. As we went over the process, I showed him how to address the letter he had chosen to write to his grandparents (Mr. and Mrs. Male-Name Evans). Now, my mother is not the least offended being called Mrs. Husband’s Name. But plenty of my college friends would be. And I couldn’t help thinking, am I teaching my son something that is obsolete?

What role do manners and etiquette play in the twenty-first century? Tea Party Girl wants to go on record as saying they play the same role they always did: to help us show preference and honor to others over ourselves. Good manners will never be obsolete and it is correct, for example, for my son to address his grandparents a way they are comfortable. “Hey, Pops!” does not work, on an envelope or to their face.

I’m always a little amused how many adults I have tea with who feel uneasy about their manners and make a comment about it. Teatime is not meant to be stiff and awkward, but somehow adults know it’s not a time to let it all hang out, either. So they worry about the minor things like whether they’re supposed to stick out their pinkie (you’re not! Unless your goal is to make fun of tea drinkers). But they’ll take a cell phone call during the tea or place their purse (that’s just been on the car floor) on the table and not think anything of it.

Do your children a favor, learn basic meal etiquette, and then teach it to them in the evening at the dining room table. A children’s tea party is an excellent, fun way to teach etiquette as well. But children need some of the basics reinforced over and over and over again (unless your children are different from mine in this regard).

So here’s some basic fundamentals of mealtime etiquette, modified from Emily Post’s The Guide to Good Manners for Kids. As a mother and Tea Party Girl, I’ve chosen the top seven I wish every parent taught their child.

1. Arrive at the table with clean hands and face. I admit, I did not do this every time when my children were very little. Now I regret it because I have to remind them all the time. It’s not a habit. Do you have the habit of washing your hands before you sit down to eat? Do your children?
2. Start eating when the host begins, or when everyone else does. Even in your own home. It breaks my heart to see hard-working mothers serving their families only for the other members to chow down before she can even sit down. She deserves her work to be respected by waiting.
3. Don’t criticize the food. Oh, that my children would never do this when at other people’s home. I can’t stand it when other children do it to me. Serving a meal is a labor of love and the one receiving it should never criticize it. My children are not allowed to say, “I don’t like…”
4. Talk with everyone at the table. We don’t live in a society anymore where children are seen but not heard. I don’t think, however, that they should be allowed to talk on and on with their brother about the latest video game, either. I am trying to teach my children to ask questions of others and listen to one another. I do this because as an adult, I have sat by many a dominating or exclusive conversationalist.
5. Thank the person who prepared the meal. I have served countless, thankless meals in my home to other people’s children and my own. This is another manner I wish I had enforced more consistently when they were really little because they constantly forget. It means a great deal to me as a host when another child thanks me for serving them food.

Anybody have an etiquette lesson they’d like to add to the list? Please leave a comment below.

Internal Tags: Childrens Tea Party
January 11th, 2008 |   read 9 comments or add your own Print This Post
Did you like this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed