Today during my online perusals, I found a few items I wanted to pass on.

Celestial Seasonings seems to be working hard to stay competitive as the specialty tea market grows. Regular readers of TPG know I’m not a big fan of grocery store tea bags. I went to their website today and found an interesting claim:

A Bold New Look for Celestial Seasonings

We are proud to present our new tea packaging, with a fresh, contemporary look that highlights our delicious, 100% natural ingredients and unique tea flavors while celebrating our rich and storied heritage. The look is new, but our tea recipes and our commitment to delicious beverages of the highest quality remain unchanged.

I’ll see their bold new look and raise them a bold Tea Party Girl Challenge. Personally, I think most tea drinkers are smarter than this. Somehow new, flashy, packaging isn’t what we’re looking for, but quality product. If it remains unchanged in an age of consumers becoming more and more informed…hmmmm.

Do any of you buy Celestial Seasonings regularly? I would love to hear from you in the comments below. What’s your favorite? And if Celestial Seasonings would like Tea Party Girl to review any of their products, I will be happy to share the results with my readers. I challenge them to try and impress me, if they feel their product’s content needs to stay the same for twenty-first century tea drinkers.

Second, one of my dreams is to someday have the resources to visit the many fabulous tearooms all over America and even other countries. I read about one in particular today, The Canterbury Tea Room in Greeley, CO that sounds especially intriguing. It impressed me that they offer a true high tea dinner menu. The menu changes each month to reflect a different country. December’s theme is England, with the following menu according to their website:

All entries begin with Almond Soup and Sweet Potato Scones

Beef Wellington–rib-eye roast topped with mushrooms and onions, encased in puff pastry or

Christmas Chicken–braised chicken breast topped with apple-cranberry sauce or

Cranberry Stuffing Bake

All entries served with pease pudding, snowy mashed potatoes, and cranberry stuffing

Desserts

figgy pudding (sweet fig souffle’ with pecans), flummery (almond custard with fruit sauce), or syllabub (frothy whipped cream flavored with brandy)

Now that sounds like an appealing menu to me. Does it to you? I love planning themed menus and would really enjoy attending one of their high teas. Wouldn’t you? If you are ever in the Greeley, CO area be sure to look up The Canterbury Tea Room.

Lastly, there are a ton of cookie recipes currently making the rounds. Do you have a baking day planned sometime in the next week? If you could make only one Christmas cookie, which one would it be? Be sure to let us know in the comments below. I am still trying to decide whether to include a baking day in my Christmas preparations since I don’t enjoy baking at all. But if I did, anything with peppermint and white chocolate would be included. Vicki Arnold of Victoria’s Traveling Tea Party pointed these cookies out to me, a great idea she said for a child’s tea party. They look darling!

Be sure to let us know about your favorite Christmas cookie! And remember, there’s nothing better to cut the sweetness of Christmas cookies than a pot of freshly brewed unsweetened tea. Be sure to relax with some after your big baking day. No fair standing up during sampling! Find your tea corner and relax for a spell to enjoy the fruit of your labor.